Left 4 Dead Origins
by harlequinzombie
Summary: Ella's sister falls victim to a virus raging through the city of Mercy and disappears late one night. Ella, with the help of her new friend Ian, is determined to find her sister before the virus takes her over completely. M for language.
1. Prologue

"If it's a boy, are you gonna name it after Dillon?"

Jenna Park gave her younger sister, Ella, a glare that simply said _Are you nuts?_ "Of course not. Not after the way he left me as soon as he heard the words 'Honey, I'm late.' I'll probably name the baby after Dad. If it's a boy."

Jenna was laying on a doctor's bed underneath bright fluorescent lights, while Ella was staring at a poster about proper pregnancy care on the far wall. The sisters both shared the same ruby-colored curls, though Jenna's was chopped short and Ella's hung to her waist. Both had bright blue eyes and a smattering of freckles across their cheeks and noses. It was so hard to tell them apart that most people believed them to be twins. In reality, Jenna was 23 and Ella was 19.

"What if it's a girl?" Ella asked, turning away from the poster and examining a plastic model of a human fetus sitting on the counter. "Name it after Mom?"

Jenna shrugged, staring up at the ceiling. "Probably. Either that or after Grandma."

At that moment, the doctor entered the room. He appeared to be in his fifties, with beady eyes hidden behind bifocals and a balding head of brown hair. He was staring at the chart in his hand as he entered, and the moment he closed the door behind him he looked up at Jenna. "Miss Park, I'm Dr. Reynolds."

"Hello doctor," Jenna greeted him, sitting up on the bed.

Dr. Reynolds turned and looked at Ella, noticing her for the first time. "Who's this?"

"That's my younger sister, Stella."

"You can call me Ella," Ella told the doctor, sticking her hand out for him to shake. Dr. Reynolds simply stared at it before turning back to Jenna.

"Miss Park, I'd like to ask you some questions before we begin the examination. You're two weeks pregnant, correct?" he asked, sitting down on a small spinny stool beside the bed.

Jenna nodded. "Yes sir, that's right."

Dr. Reynolds nodded, scribbled a small note on the chart, and then cleared his throat. "When you and your husband -."

"Boyfriend," Jenna corrected him, sharing a small glance with Ella.

The doctor looked at Jenna like she was some sort of monster for having pre-marital sex. "When you and your_ boyfriend_ had sexual intercourse, did either of you have any sort of diseases, illnesses?"

"No sir. I got tested for STDs the month before and I knew that Dillon had just been tested -."

"No, Miss Park. Not for STDs." For the first time since he'd entered the room, Dr. Reynolds looked at Jenna in the eyes. "Were either of you ill with flu-like symptoms? Fever, coughing, sneezing, anything of the sort?"

Jenna thought a moment. "Now that I think about it, I remember Dillon feeling a little feverish the week before. He said that one of his coworkers came to work that week with the flu and was there for about half of the workday before finally going home, and because of that Dillon caught it. Along with a few others."

Dr. Reynolds nodded seriously, and began writing on the chart again. "Where did he work?"

"An office building in downtown Mercy, a few blocks from the hospital."

This made the doctor stop writing for a moment. After a minute or two, he began again. "Was he still feeling ill at the time of your intercourse?"

"He was coughing a bit but his fever had gone down to almost normal."

Dr. Reynolds looked up over the top of his glasses. "Almost?"

Jenna shrugged. "About 99 degrees, give or take a couple of decimals."

"Miss Park," Dr. Reynolds began, taking his glasses off and rubbing his forehead as if he had a throbbing headache. "There have been numerous patients in my office complaining of high fever, coughing, aching, and other flu symptoms. Just like what your boyfriend caught. We've prescribed each and every one of them medication and it goes away, but only for a week at most. The symptoms always come back."

"Dr. Reynolds, I don't mean to sound rude in any way whatsoever, but what does any of this have to do with the baby in my stomach?" Jenna asked, a hint of irritability in her voice.

"I'm getting to it, I promise," he said, holding a hand up as if mentally adding Scout's honor. "As I said, the symptoms always come back, and at that point they are much more difficult to get rid of, no matter what we prescribe. Eventually it gets to the point where the patients are vomiting blood and losing the ability to coherently speak as the virus severely damages the vocal cords. It also causes the patients to have spasms and twitch." He took a deep breath. "The illness is caused by a new virus. When it enters the patient's bloodstream, symptoms develop quickly, though the virus itself takes anywhere between a day to two weeks to make itself more noticeable. We know it's not airborne, but it is passed through bodily fluids - blood, saliva, even semen. Beyond that, the virus is a mystery. Medically speaking, the virus is known as_ Rutilus Oculus Aegrotatio_, or quite literally 'the red-eye illness.' More commonly, it's known as the Rage Virus."

Ella and her sister shared a look when the doctor finished talking. "Rage Virus? Like in zombie movies?" Jenna asked, giving the doctor a skeptical look.

"Please, Miss Park, I know it seems absurd, but you must believe me. It's turning into an epidemic."

"If it's such an epidemic how come we haven't heard about it on the news?" Jenna asked, still not believing what Dr. Reynolds had just told her.

"The state officials have attempted to keep it as quiet as possible, so as not to alert anyone. They've made it quite clear to myself and other doctors only to relate the information on the virus to those who are in danger of it."

Jenna blinked. "Does that mean that I'm in danger of it?"

Grimly, the doctor nodded. "I'm afraid so, Miss Park. You've told me that your boyfriend was ill with the symptoms after a coworker showed up at work displaying the same symptoms. It screams of the virus. When did you find out you were pregnant after the sexual intercourse?"

"A little under a week later."

"Was he feeling sick again at the time?"

Thinking, Jenna reluctantly nodded.

"The virus was returning. Did he show any of the same symptoms after that moment?"

"Hell if I know. He disappeared that night," she scoffed, folding her arms under her breasts. "He was too afraid of the responsibility of a child and ran off without a warning. All I found was a letter on the coffee table saying 'I'm sorry.'"

The doctor nodded, seeming to understand the predicament. "You said he worked in an office building in Mercy, near the hospital. Correct?"

Jenna nodded, not wanting to reply. Ella knew that talk of Dillon made her upset.

"I've sent all of my patients infected with the virus to Mercy Hospital, as have all the doctors in the area. Even many from other cities because their hospitals are too full of virus patients. Therefore, Mercy has the most patients with the illness in the state." Dr. Reynolds hesitated. "It's clear to me that your boyfriend's coworker was sick and passed it onto him."

"If this so-called 'rage virus' is passed through body fluid, how come I didn't catch it from Dillon?"

"There are one of two possibilities with that. Either you and the fetus are both infected with the virus and it's just taking a while to develop in you due to your current health condition, the pregnancy, or the semen infected the egg itself and not you, causing the fetus to be forming with the virus inside of it. In either case, Miss Park, the baby inside of you cannot come into this world. It's a product of the virus."

Jenna was silent for a moment.

"I'm sorry, Miss Park, I really am," Dr. Reynolds told her, standing up. "Deidre up at the front can schedule an appointment for an abortion to get rid of the fetus, and if the symptoms begin to develop in you I can send you to the hospital. Again, I'm terribly sorry for this." He placed his hand comfortingly on her shoulder.

"You're_ sorry_?!" Jenna screamed, brushing his arm off of her. "First you feed me this crap about some rage virus straight out of_ 28 Days Later_, and then you try and get me to abort my baby because you claim it'll be some sort of monster! How can you sit there and tell me you're sorry?!" She stood up and stormed out of the room.

Ella, unsure of what to say, grabbed both her and Jenna's purses and scurried out of the room, too embarrassed of her sister's behavior to look at the doctor in the eye.

When they got in the car, Jenna was still fuming. "Of all the nerve. How _dare_ he feed me some stupid story about a virus from a zombie movie to try and talk me into abortion. He only did it because I had pre-marital sex. You saw the look he gave me when I told him Dillon wasn't my husband. He didn't want some bastard baby in the world."

Ella remained quiet. After a sufficient amount of time had passed with nothing but awkward silence in the air pressing down on their ears, she finally quietly mumbled, "You shouldn't have gotten so mad at him, Jen. He was only trying to help you and the baby."

Jenna flashed an angry look at her sister, her eyes seemingly glowing red with anger. "Don't even begin to take his side, Ella." She turned her attention back to the road. "I'll find another doctor, a _sane_ doctor, and schedule an appointment for next week."

Instead of throwing in her two cents again, Ella stared out the window at the blur of buildings whizzing past.


	2. Red Eye Illness

Four days later, Ella climbed the stairs of an apartment complex to Jenna's apartment, trying to see over the pizza box in her arms so she wouldn't fall. When she reached Jenna's apartment, she kicked the door and waited for it to open.

When it did, she smiled and handed her sister a brown paper bag. "It's garlic bread," she said, and walked into the apartment. "I got half-cheese and half-mushroom, since I know you don't like plain pizza. And I've got Pepsis in my purse." Ella set the pizza box down on the coffee table and fished the two bottles out of her purse.

"What's all this for?" Jenna asked, closing the door and staring curiously at the bag in her hand.

"I knew you weren't feeling well so I figured we'd take a lazy day, eat pizza, and watch movies. You still have _Sixteen Candles_, don't you?"

Jenna nodded, placing the bag of garlic bread on the table beside the pizza box and sitting on the couch. She was wrapped up in a plaid blanket, and underneath it wore her pajamas. Her hair was frizzy and unkempt, and her face was clean of all makeup, dark circles very prominent under her eyes. Since the day before, she'd felt sick at her stomach and had developed a high fever. She coughed as she reached for her bottle of Pepsi, watching her sister pop the DVD into the player. "You didn't have to do this for me, Ella," she said, tightening the blanket around her. "It's just a little cold, it'll go away in no time."

"I know, but it's an excuse to spend time with you," Ella replied, smiling over her shoulder at her older sister. "Have you been following the diet that I printed out for you to keep the baby healthy?"

"Yes ma'am," Jenna said, saluting jokingly. "Though I doubt Pepsi and pizza are on there."

Ella shrugged, taking her jacket off and sitting down beside her on the couch. "You don't have to eat it if you don't want to, you know."

"Hey now, I never said that."

Ella laughed and hit the Play button on the remote to begin the movie.

That night, Ella decided to stay at Jenna's apartment in case she got sicker. She helped her sister into bed before making a palette on the couch in the living room. Snuggling into it, Ella turned the television on low volume to watch a late night movie to lull her to sleep.

Over the past four days, Ella couldn't help but remember what the doctor had said to Jenna._ "High fever, coughing, aching... the baby inside of you cannot come into this world... the virus is a mystery."_

When Jenna became ill only a few days after the doctor visit, the doctor's warnings became screams in Ella's head. She was so tempted to drag her sister into the car and drive her to the hospital herself. Jenna was developing the same symptoms that Dillon had, and that the doctor had talked about.

_I'm just worrying too much_, Ella thought, laying her head on the pillow._ I'm being paranoid_. Her eyes began to close and soon she drifted off into a deep sleep.

Ella was running through a dark forest, with nothing to defend herself but a small pistol. Her heart was racing and her breath was ragged. Her clothes were dirty and disheveled, and she was sore and aching; she didn't know how she knew it, but she'd been on the move for days and running for some time now. She knew that she shouldn't be alone, and yet she was.

"Where did you go?" she called, though she didn't know who to.

Perhaps it was her imagination, but she could've sworn she heard someone scream back "We're over here!" Glad that her mysterious companions replied, she took a step in that direction.

And then she heard it. Heavy breathing, followed by a snarling sound, coming out of the bushes to her right.

Ella froze, too scared to even swallow the lump in her throat. She moved to raise her pistol toward the sound when she heard the sound of someone crying nearby. It began soft and muffled, then quickly grew loud, as if whoever it was was in serious pain.

Ella turned her head towards the sound of the crying when all of a sudden someone charged out of the bushes to her right, where the snarling sound had come from before. They smacked the pistol from her hand and managed to knock her down, pinning her to the ground. Using as much of her strength as was possible, she tried to either kick or push them off of her. It was then that she got a good look at their face.

It was a man, yet at the same time it wasn't. Through his snarling lips she could see his teeth were yellowed and dotted with blood. His skin was the color of cigarette ashes, and there were dark purple circles underneath his eyes. His eyes were what really drew her attention; they glowed an intense red, as if on fire.

A bodiless voice whispered in her ear at that moment:_ Rutilus Oculus Aegrotatio. The Red-Eye Illness._

_The Rage Virus._

Ella's eyes snapped open. She was drenched in sweat, yet her blanket was laying on the ground. She took a few deep breaths and tried to steady her erratic heartbeat.

"It was a nightmare. Just a nightmare," she chanted quietly to herself, brushing her bangs off her damp forehead.

She got up and padded into the kitchen to get a glass of water to help calm herself down before she went back to sleep. As she watched the glass fill up, she heard the muffled sounds of crying that mimicked the crying from her nightmare. Her heart seemed to skip a few beats.

Listening for a moment, she realized it was coming from Jenna's room.

"Jen?" she called, turning the faucet off.

The crying continued.

Ella set the glass on the counter and walked to Jenna's door. She knocked on it softly and said her sister's name again. And again, the crying continued.

She opened the door and stuck her head in. The room was dark, making it hard for her to tell where Jenna was. It was then that she noticed that the bathroom door in Jenna's room was opened ever so slightly, and a sliver of light spilled out onto the carpet.

"Jen?" Ella called softly, making her way toward the bathroom. The crying grew louder, and she was certain that her sister was in there.

Pushing the door open, Ella was horrified at what she saw. Jenna was sitting on the floor of the bathroom, her back to Ella and the door. Her hair was stringy and she was covering her face in her hands, sobbing loudly. But what truly terrified Ella was the pool of blood on the floor between Jenna's legs. Her pajama pants were stained red from the blood, too, as was the front of her shirt.

"_Oh my God!_ Jenna!" Ella knelt down and wrapped an arm around her sister. "What happened?!"

"I don't..." Jenna wailed, keeping her face covered. She sounded as if she was having a hard time saying what she wanted to say. "It feels... something's biting me... hurts..." With another burst of pain, Jenna screamed and removed her hands from her face, wrapping her arms around her stomach and twisting her eyes shut in pain.

Ella looked at her face and gasped. Her cheeks were sunken in and her dark circles were more prominent than ever. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth and onto her blood-soaked shirt, indicating that she'd been throwing up blood.

"Jen, I have to take you to the hospital!" She reached up and pressed her hand against Jenna's forehead, then snatched it away in a second as if she'd just touched a hot stove. "Jesus, Jen, you're burning up!"

Jenna opened her eyes. The pupils were a flat shade of dark grey, while every other part of the eye was a dull red color. It made Ella jump back, startled.

_Rutilus Oculus Aegrotatio. The Red-Eye Illness._

_The Rage Virus._

"What?" Jenna croaked, a fresh onset of tears prepared to fall and chase after the past ones in the same tracks.

"N-nothing. Wait here. I'll go call for an ambulance." Ella stood up and hurried for her cell phone. She dug through her purse and the pockets of both her jeans and her coat before she realized she'd forgotten it at her dorm room. _Fuck._

"Jen, where's your phone?" she called in the direction of the bathroom, heading for her sister's purse.

Jenna mumbled something that Ella couldn't comprehend, so she just continued to dig around the purse. After a few minutes of scrounging around in the pockets, she gave up and tossed it back down on the counter.

"There's no_ time_ for this!" she cried, running her hands through her hair. She heard Jenna began to wail again, and new that the pain was worsening. She hurried to the bathroom door. She found Jenna sitting in the same position as before, except this time only one hand was covering her crying eyes while the other arm was wrapped around her stomach.

"I'm going to try your neighbors, see if I can use their phone. I'll be right back, Jen." She started to go, but then stopped and looked over her shoulder. "I love you Jenna."

Jenna mumbled something, a mess of words and a tangle of letters that Ella couldn't make out, yet still pretended that it was her sister's way of saying she loved her back in her current state.

Rushing as fast as she could, Ella hurried out the door and across the hallway to the neighboring apartment. She banged on the door, praying someone would answer. "Please, please let me in! There's something wrong with my sister, I need to call 911!" Nobody answered, and she didn't know if that meant they weren't home or if they just didn't want to have anything to do with the crazed girl screaming outside their door.

When her efforts continued to prove fruitless, she ran down the stairs and began trying the floor below. However, none of the tenants there answered her distress call, either. Frustrated and now crying and tearful herself, she ran to the lobby and the door of the landlord's apartment. Surely he must be home.

She pounded on the door and cried out, her voice echoing in the emptiness of the dark lobby, illuminated only by the light of the streetlamp outside spilling in through the windows.

"Please let me in! My sister's upstairs, she's sick and there's something terribly wrong. I need a phone, I need to call 911!"

Ella banged on the door until her palms began to bleed and her cheeks were soaked with tears. Exhausted both mentally and physically, she began considering using a payphone outside when the door opened.

A young man around 25 or so was standing there, rubbing his eyes. He wore no shirt and a pair of flannel plaid pajama pants. His hair was wild, and as he began to speak Ella could hear the slur in his words that indicated she'd jerked him out of a good night's sleep.

"What's going on?" he mumbled, eyeing her sleepily.

"Are you the landlord?" she asked, grabbing him by the arms.

"No, that's my father," he replied with a tone in his voice that implied_ I'm obviously too young. Are you stupid?_ "He's out of town right now so I'm looking after the complex. Why did you wake me up at two-thirty in the morning? What are you screaming about?"

Ella began crying again, and the young man's face began to soften.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to snap at you. What's wrong?"

"My sister... she's been sick... bleeding... so much blood..." was all Ella was able to say before the new flood of tears drowned out her voice.

"Bleeding? Where?" he asked, seemingly more awake.

"Apartment 2B," Ella said, and turned to run back up the stairway, the man behind her.

When they got to Jenna's apartment, the door was flung open. Ella didn't remember leaving it open behind her when she left; in fact, she was positive that she'd closed it. _Oh no..._

"Jenna?" Ella called, rushing to the bathroom. The landlord's son followed close at her heels.

Ella looked in the bathroom, and felt her heart sink when she saw that her sister was gone. The only thing left in there that was any indication of what had happened that night was the large puddle of blood on the floor.

"Whoa... what the fuck happened?" the man asked, running his hands through his dark chestnut hair, his eyes wide with disbelief.

Instead of responding, Ella began dashing around the apartment in a frenzy, desperately seeking her sister. She checked the kitchen, the living room, the closets. No Jenna.

"Oh God, oh God, oh God..." Ella collapsed on the couch and began sobbing hysterically.

The man stood there awkwardly, unsure of what to do. "Where's your sister?" he asked finally, attempting to find something to say.

"I don't have a clue," Ella replied defeatedly, the well of tears inside her finally dried up. "I left her sitting in the bathroom, on the floor, where I found her when I heard her crying..." She shook her head. "And now she's gone. And the front door's open."

"Maybe she's somewhere in the complex then," he suggested, and held his hand out to help her stand up. "I'll take the three floors above this. Why don't you go back through this floor, the first floor, and the lobby?"

Ella nodded, a new surge of determination coursing through her veins.

"I'll meet you back here," he said, and took off for the stairway.

Ella began running through the floor, searching every nook and cranny for Jenna. She checked each janitor's closet she came across, and knocked on doors. Apparently everyone in the complex was a heavy sleeper, unfortunately, and no one answered. She checked back through the first floor, doing the same things that she'd tried on Jenna's floor, and then the lobby. She checked in the laundry room, the mailroom, behind the receptionist's desk in the corner, and even underneath the stairwell, but couldn't find her sister anywhere.

She felt numb. She didn't know what to do now, and the only thing that kept running through her mind at lightning speed was the image of her sister's red eyes and the whisper from her dream. _Rutilus Oculus Aegrotatio. The Red-Eye Illness. The Rage Virus._

_"Eventually it gets to the point where the patients are vomiting blood and losing the ability to coherently speak."_

She remembered what the doctor had said vividly, and recalled the blood dripping from Jenna's mouth, the blood-stained shirt, and the difficulty she'd had trying to speak before her words finally turned into garbled mush.

_"You and the fetus are both infected with the virus and it's just taking a while to develop..."_

_No, it can't be true_, Ella thought.

Downtrodden, Ella trudged up the stairs and back to Jenna's apartment. She walked in and sat down on the couch, staring at her empty Pepsi bottle propped up on the floor beside the coffee table leg. She felt completely miserable.

"Did you find her?" she heard, and turned to see the landlord's son walk in. Ella shook her head, and he sighed. "Damn. Neither did I. But I did find something. I don't know if it's from your sister, but..."

"What?" Ella asked, standing up.

"The window leading to the fire escape on the floor above this one was open, and when I did my rounds earlier to make sure things were safe, it was locked."

"Do you think Jenna could've gotten out by the fire escape?" Ella asked.

"She could've," he said, and together they ran out of the apartment and up the stairs.

The fire escape window was at the end of the hallway, and just as he'd said, it was open. Ella examined it and couldn't find anything to really show that Jenna had used it. She was about to give up when she something caught her eye out on the fire escape itself. Climbing out the window, she gripped the railing and knelt down to look at it at eye level.

Sure enough, a ruby red handprint was smeared across the black metal railing. The bloody print glittered in the light from a streetlamp.

"What is it?"

Ella turned to the landlord's son and pointed at the handprint. "It's blood. It's got to be Jenna." She looked down at the sidewalk below. "She must've climbed out of the window and then used the fire escape to get down."

"Where could she have gone from there?" he asked, looking around at the city streets below.

"Not a clue. But I need to find her." Ella thought a moment and then climbed back through the window. "Do you have a car by any chance?"

"Yeah, I have a truck in the parking lot. Why?"

"Would you mind driving me to the hospital?"

"Why the hospital?"

"Because I've heard that they have a directory of all of the doctors in the area, and I need the personal number of the doctor Jenna was at earlier this week," Ella told him, rushing back to Jenna's apartment to grab her jacket and her boots. There was no time to slip pants so her pajama shorts would have to do. "He knows what's wrong with her, so maybe he knows somewhere she might go. And who knows, maybe we'll find her on the way and won't have to bother him at all."

The man nodded. "Gotcha. I'll run down and grab my shoes and a jacket, and I'll meet you by the stairs." He turned and began heading off, then stopped and looked over his shoulder at her. "By the way, my name's Ian."

"Ella," she replied, smiling softly.

Ian nodded, smiled back, then dashed down the stairs.

Ella watched him go before running into the apartment and shrugging on her jacket. As she pulled on her winter boots, she spotted a picture of her and Jenna at the Grand Canyon when they were younger. Jenna had been around 17, which made Ella about 13.

"I'll find you Jenna," Ella whispered quietly, kissing her fingertips and pressing them against the picture. "I promise."


	3. Hospital Call

The silence in the air was deafening as Ian sped down the highway, weaving through cars to get to the hospital as fast as he could. Ella sat in the passenger seat, keeping an eye out on the sidewalks outside for any sight of Jenna.

"So... if you don't mind my asking, what happened to your sister to cause this?" Ian asked. When Ella didn't respond, he added again, "If you don't mind my asking."

Ella sighed. "No, it's fine." She turned her head to face out the front windshield. "Jenna was dating this guy, Dillon. They'd been together since their freshman year of college, almost five years. Dillon was an okay guy; I mean, he didn't hurt or abuse my sister, and he had a decent job, but he never tried to get promoted so he could make more money to help support the two of them. But Jenna was head over heels in love with him, so I never said anything bad. Around her, at least." Ella paused for a moment. "Jenna wanted a baby with him, but he didn't. He didn't want the responsibility of a baby. When Jenna found out she was pregnant, he left that night. It broke her heart, and she's still not really over it. But now she's more pissed off and angry than sad. And yet she's determined to have the baby."

"So she's pregnant?" Ian interjected quickly.

Nodding, Ella continued. "Yeah, only about two and a half weeks though. She told me she wanted to keep the baby despite it being part-Ian, and she would do anything to make sure the baby was safe, happy, and healthy. So I told her to schedule an appointment with a doctor to make sure she was in good enough health to have the baby, get a diet schedule and advice, all that jazz. He told her... he told her that there was a new virus going around, especially in Mercy. Dillon had worked in downtown Mercy, near the hospital, and a coworker had come to work sick and he'd caught it."

"Which means that your sister caught it?"

"That's what the doctor said. He said that either Jenna and the baby both had it and it was just taking a while to develop, or that the baby had caught the entire virus from some infected sperm of Dillon's. Either way, he said, Jenna had to abort the baby."

"Damn..." Ian whispered, shaking his head slightly.

"Jenna was mad. She screamed at the doctor and stormed out, telling him he was crazy and she wasn't going to give her baby up. Then a few days later she got sick."

Ian stopped at a red light and looked over at Ella. "With the virus that the doctor said she might have?"

"I don't know if that's exactly what she was sick with, but the symptoms were the same," Ella told him.

"What exactly is this virus?"

Ella hesitated. She didn't want to sound like a crazy person, telling him about a rage virus that came out of zombie horror movies. But what other choice did she have?

He was watching her, curious. "Well," she began slowly, "he said that it started out a lot like the flu. Fever, aching, coughing and sneezing, the works. It goes away after a few days with medication, but it comes back a lot worse within a week, and then it's a lot harder to get rid of. He said it causes the patient to throw up blood and it ruins their vocal cords so they can't speak very well, and makes them twitch and spaz out. _He said_," Ella said, stressing the words so Ian would know it wasn't her idea, "that it was called the Red-Eye Illness, or the Rage Virus."

Ian was silent for a moment. "The Rage Virus?" he repeated. "Like... the zombie virus?"

Ella nodded, somewhat humiliated.

"And you think your sister has this?" Ian asked, pulling into the hospital's parking garage.

"I never said that," Ella said quickly, defending herself and her mentality. "It's what Dr. Reynolds said she had, or what she might have, because of Dillon and his stupid coworker."

"But you said she'd been showing the symptoms," Ian said, searching for a spot.

Ella reluctantly nodded. "She did... I'm not saying it's positive that that's what she has, but she had all the flu symptoms like what he said the virus starts out with, and then she was throwing up blood and couldn't form her words very well, and her eyes were turning red -."

"Whoa whoa whoa." Ian jerked the truck to a stop and looked at her. "Her eyes were red?"

"Yeah. When I found her crying on the bathroom floor, she looked at me and her eyes were turning red."

Ian paused a moment, then without a word continued driving. He found a spot and pulled in. When he stopped the car, he turned and looked at Ella. "I don't know if you're telling me the truth about this virus or not -."

"I am!" Ella cried, throwing her arms out as wide as the small truck's interior would let her.

He held up a hand. "I don't know if you're telling me the truth or not, but," he said, stressing the word, "you need to find your sister, and something's obviously wrong with her. So I'll help you with whatever you need until we find her."

"Thank you," Ella said softly. Ian smiled at her and got out of the car.

"Come on," he said. "Let's try and find Jenna."

"I'm sorry, I can't give out that information."

Ella, exasperated, threw her hands out. "But it's important!"

The nurse at the front desk shook her head. "I'm sorry," she said again, though Ella knew she couldn't care less about the predicament of the girl in front of her. "That information is secure and I'm only allowed to give it out with permission to certain people."

"But my sister's gone! I need Dr. Reynolds's number!"

"If your sister's missing, then call the police," the nurse snapped before walking off.

On the verge of tears, Ella sighed and ran her hands through her hair. "What am I supposed to do?" she asked Ian, helplessly. Ian shrugged, unsure of what could help.

Ella looked around the waiting room. It was almost full, and almost every person sitting in the hard plastic chairs was an ashen color, dark purple circles underneath their eyes. When one would open their eyes to look around, Ella could see the faint redness of their eyes, and it brought back the memory of Jenna on the bathroom floor.

Ella walked over to two of the chairs in the corner of the waiting room, underneath the television set that no one was even paying attention to, and collapsed in one of them. Ian sat beside her, a look of pity on his face.

"What do I do now?" she asked quietly, more to herself than Ian.

Doctors and nurses were rushing past them, some grabbing people from the waiting room and taking them into the portion of the hospital with the examination rooms, and others grabbing paperwork from the front desk before scurrying back to their offices in various parts of the building.

"All of these other people look like they have the same thing Jenna did," Ella told Ian, eyeing the crowd of people sitting around them. More and more continued to trickle in, each looking just as sick, if not more, as the one before. "But I don't see any who have already started throwing up blood."

"Maybe the virus in these people isn't as developed as it was in your sister," Ian suggested, shrugging.

A doctor passing by stopped upon hearing them. He spun around and looked at them both, incredulously. "What did you just say?" he asked, looking at Ian.

"Excuse me?" Ian asked, confused.

"What did you say?" the doctor repeated, coming closer and talking in a stage whisper, not wanting the others in the waiting room to hear him. "You mentioned the virus!" Both Ian and Ella nodded. "How could you have known about such a thing? The information on the virus is extremely confidential!"

"My sister's doctor told it to her a few days ago," Ella told the doctor quietly. "He said there's a chance she has it."

The doctor's eyes grew wide. "Where is she?" he asked, looking around.

Ella shook her head. "I don't know," she whispered almost inaudibly, tears threatening to spill over her eyelids.

"What do you mean you don't know?" the doctor snapped.

"Her sister went missing about half an hour ago," Ian told the doctor. "She was ill with the virus symptoms and -."

"Not here, not here!" the doctor hissed, pressing a finger to his lips to indicate that he wanted silence. "I don't want any mention of the virus around here. I'd rather not alert the rest of the people here and get them worked up. Follow me to my office, we'll discuss it there." In a flash, the doctor was up and headed for the back of the hospital. Ian and Ella hurried to stand up, then had to jog to follow him.

The doctor reached an office door and opened it, gesturing for Ian and Ella to enter. He closed the door behind them, then sat down at the chair behind his desk while the two younger adults sat in the leather chairs across from it.

"Now, you said your sister had the virus symptoms?" the doctor began, looking at Ella and folding his hands on the desk in front of him.

"Yes sir. She became sick a few days ago. She had a high fever, coughing, sneezing, all of it. She thought it was just a little cold."

"Then how do you know it was the virus?" the doctor snapped.

"I told you sir, her doctor said she had it."

"How did she catch it?"

"Her boyfriend. He got her pregnant while he was sick," Ella said. "Jenna's doctor said that he had the virus and it spread to her and the baby."

The doctor was quiet for a moment. "What doctor told her this?"

"Dr. Reynolds. I think his first name was James," Ella said. "On Peach Street."

He nodded, then pulled out a small black address book. "What else did he say about the virus?"

"He told us the symptoms, that it comes back after a few days, and it causes spasms and damaged vocal cords. And vomiting blood."

"Anything else?"

"He said it's called the Red-Eye Illness. The Rage Virus."

The doctor nodded grimly. "I'm afraid it's all too real."

"So it doesn't just exist in horror movies?" Ian asked, his eyes wide. "There really is such a thing?"

"Unfortunately, and it's hit Mercy like a tidal wave." The doctor looked up at Ian before switching his gaze to Ella. "Did your sister display any other signs of having the virus before she disappeared?"

"Well," Ella said, flashing a quick glance in Ian's direction. "Around two this morning I woke up and heard her crying. She was in her bathroom, on the floor... she'd been throwing up blood. Her eyes were turning red and..."

"And what?" the doctor pressed. Even Ian was interested; Ella hadn't told him about anything else that she hadn't already told the doctor.

"She was sitting in a pool of blood, and the front of her pajama pants was stained with it. She was bleeding from... there. She said it felt like something was biting her."

Both the doctor and Ian seemed to hold their breath. "Something was biting her?" the doctor finally asked. "As in, from inside?"

Ella shrugged. "I'm not sure. All she said was something was biting her, and it hurt. It was all she was able to make out before she started crying again."

"And she was bleeding?"

Ella nodded.

"This isn't good, not good at all." The doctor continued to flip through his address book. He stopped on a page and picked up the receiver of the phone on his desk.

"It'll be okay Ella," Ian said, squeezing her shoulder.

"I sure hope so," Ella replied, sighing.

"James? It's Michael Morning, from Mercy Hospital," the doctor said into the phone. "I'm sorry to wake you at such an ungodly hour of the night but it's an urgent emergency. I have a couple in here, and the young woman said that her sister visited your clinic a few days before." He listened for a few moments, then put his hand over the speaker. "What was your name?" he asked Ella.

"Stella Park. My sister was Jenna Park."

"She says her name is Stella Park, and her sister was Jenna Park," Dr. Morning said, relaying the information to Dr. Reynolds. "Yes, that's right. She says her sister came down with the virus just days after her visit to your office, and earlier tonight she was vomiting blood and complaining of something biting her from the inside, accompanied by excessive vaginal bleeding." After a moment, Dr. Morning shook his head. "The sister isn't here. Miss Park said that she disappeared shortly after she stumbled across her. Yes, James, her eyes were red."

"I need to know what's going on with Jenna, mentally," Ella jumped in. "I need to know where she might go in her current state."

"Miss Park wants to know the psychological state of her sister so she can determine where she might have gone." There was a long pause when Dr. Morning didn't speak. "I'll tell them. Thank you James. Again, sorry to wake you." He cradled the receiver and sighed.

"Well?" Ian pressed. When the doctor didn't speak, Ella almost screamed with impatience.

"Dr. Reynolds said that he feared this would happen. The bleeding and the biting sensation your sister complained about was from the baby in her stomach," Dr. Morning told her.

"She was only two weeks pregnant though," Ella said. "That's not enough time for the fetus to grow into a baby."

Shrugging, Dr. Morning stood up. "Something with the virus, I'm presuming. It caused the fetus to grow at a much more rapid pace than what it normally does. Though keep in mind this is only a guess; I've personally never encountered a situation such as this, a woman impregnated by a sperm infected with the virus. Dr. Reynolds said that, because the baby had so much of the virus in its bloodstream, it began searching for self-nourishment at that moment. The only thing around was the walls of your sister's womb, and other parts of her body."

Ella gasped, horrified. "It was... _eating_ my sister?"

"I'm afraid so."

She couldn't speak. Instead, she just buried her face in her hands and quietly sobbed.

"What did the doctor say about her mentality, where she might have gone?" Ian asked for Ella.

"He said there's no telling where she could be at this current point and time. Her mentality is pretty much fried from the virus, and from what Stella's told me it's developed at a much quicker pace than normal."

"Are you trying to tell me that Jenna could be anywhere in this damn city?!" Ella shrieked, standing up. Fury was in her eyes. She wanted - no, _needed_ - to find her sister.

"I'm afraid so." Dr. Morning looked genuinely sorry. "If you would like, I can contact the police and tell them to scout the streets and the surrounding forests to keep an eye out for your sister. The two of you can stay here for the remainder of the night to help calm down after such a shock."

Ella and Ian looked at each other. "This is your call, Ella. Jenna's your sister, you know what'd be best."

She took a shaky breath and looked at the doctor. "Tell the police that she was wearing an AC/DC t-shirt and blue pajama pants with penguins on them. Her hair is red, like mine, but it's short. And please, _please_, tell them to find her fast."

Dr. Morning nodded, pointed at a cabinet in the back of the room, and said, "There are a couple of blankets in there for emergency use. You can make palettes anywhere in my office." In a flash, he was out of the room.

Ian headed for the cabinets and laid out two blankets on the floor. "Ella, you need to lay down. You've had a rough night; you've got to be emotionally exhausted by now."

Nodding slowly, Ella was suddenly aware of the sleep that threatened to loom over her. She laid down on one of the blankets, rolled up her jacket for a pillow, and curled up on her side. In moments she was fast asleep, and luckily too lost in the peaceful darkness of slumber to dream of any more forests.


	4. Running for Your Life

"Ella, wake up!"

Ella moaned and rolled over, opening her eyes groggily. "What?" she muttered. She'd finally managed to sleep well for the first time that night, and now Ian was waking her up?

"Something's going on," Ian said. He was kneeling on his palette, staring at the door to Dr. Morning's office.

"What do you mean?" Ella asked, rubbing her eyes and sitting up.

Ian shrugged. "I'm not really sure. But the doctor came in here a few minutes ago looking really frazzled, and all the other doctors and nurses are running around like crazy out in the hall. They all look like something went wrong."

Ella watched the two windows on either side of the door of Dr. Morning's office, and sure enough numerous hospital personnel were running back and forth, some with charts in their hands, others taking rapidly on the phone. All, however, looked extremely worried.

"How long was I out?" Ella asked, not taking her eyes off of the hallway.

"About an hour and a half. It's four-thirty."

"Did Dr. Morning call the police and ask if they'd look for Jenna?"

Ian nodded. "He said they'd be right on it, but knowing the Mercy Police Department that means they'll be right on it in the morning after their Dunkin' Donuts run," he said, scoffing.

Despite the joke, Ella suddenly was overcome by a horrible mood.

Ian looked at her and sighed. "Sorry Ella, I didn't mean it like that. They'll find your sister, I promise. And if they don't, then we will." He draped an arm over her shoulder in a quick hug.

Just then, Dr. Morning burst into the room. He hurried to his desk and jiggled the mouse on his computer to remove the screen saver. As he did, he began speaking to Ian and Ella without even looking at them. "The two of you should leave immediately. There's a crisis here and we're trying to evacuate all those who can get out safely."

"What crisis?" Ian asked, standing up. Ella remained seated on the ground, looking from one to the other, confused.

"Just... a crisis." Dr. Morning looked at them with pleading eyes, then began clacking away on the computer keyboard.

Ian looked down at Ella, who stood up. As they watched the doctor for a few moments, they heard a deafening scream from the floor above.

"Doctor, what's going on?" Ella almost begged, staring up at the ceiling. "That has to have something to do with this crisis you're telling us about."

"It's not for me to tell!"

Another terrified scream wailed, except this time it was on the same floor as the office they were in.

"You can't expect us to walk out into the hospital when people are screaming all around us!" Ella cried, throwing her arms out.

The doctor sighed and ran a hand through his hair. Outside the office, members of the hospital staff were rushing to the source of the screaming. "Fine, fine. I'm presuming Dr. Reynolds told you and your sister that he sent the virus-infected patients here when the symptoms returned, yes?" When Ella nodded, he continued. "We've kept them in an intensive care unit on the floor above this one. It's carefully monitored and locked with state-of-the-art technology."

"Why keep them so guarded?" Ian asked.

"Haven't you ever paid attention to any of these zombie movies you associate the Rage Virus with?" Dr. Morning snapped. "The patients become vicious and begin trying to feast on those of us who haven't caught it yet. That's exactly why we keep them locked up, so they can't do that. But some hooligans were trying to be funny and pull a prank on the hospital, and shut off the power in the ICU. It was only out for about five minutes, but that was long enough for the patients to escape."

"They're attacking other people? Right now?" Ella asked, her eyes wide with incredulity.

"Yes. Now please, leave the hospital immediately!" Another shriek rang out through the air, yet it sounded closer than the two prior. "Shit," Dr. Morning muttered, then yanked open a desk drawer and pulled out a pistol. "Good luck, and God speed." Without another word, he rushed out into the hallway, slamming the door closed behind him.

Ella and Ian watched through the windows. Dr. Morning headed for the direction of the third scream. Before he took so much as five steps from the door, however, a figure approached him. It was a young woman around Ella's age, yet her skin was grey and her eyes were glowing red like two hot coals. Blood dripped from her foaming mouth and stained the hospital gown she was wearing. Babbling incoherent nonsense, she snarled and began charging at the doctor, whose pistol was raised and pointed square at her head.

With a burst of light and a thunderous banging sound, Dr. Morning shot the head of the nurse off, sending blood, brains, and who knows what else splattering over the walls.

All the blood had drained from Ian's face. He turned and looked at Ella, who looked like she was about to throw up. Her face was a pale green and her eyes were the size of dinner plates. "It's okay, Ella, just sit down." He guided her to one of the leather chairs across from the doctor's desk, then ran over and locked the office door to keep anyone - infected or otherwise - from getting in.

"How in the hell are we supposed to leave the hospital if things like that are happening in the hallways?!" Ella hissed, sitting down.

"I wish I could answer that, Ella, I really do. But I can't..." Ian sighed and scrubbed his face with his hands. "I mean, we could try for the waiting room and the front exit, but we're so far away from the front of the building. It'll take forever to get there. And if there are other doctors toting around pistols like Dr. Morning was... and all the infected people... who knows if we'd even make it there alive?"

Ella stared at the peach-colored carpet, unsure of what to do. She knew she still needed to find Jenna, but at that moment she was more concerned with getting herself out of this hospital in one, uninfected and unbitten piece.

"Wait a second," Ian said suddenly. Ella looked up at him. "We're at the back of the building right now. That means that there has to be some back exit that leads to the alley behind the hospital for the janitors."

"Do you think we can make it?" she asked.

"It's worth a shot. Come on, Ella. This is the last hallway in on this floor before you hit the stairs and the elevator. They're not gonna have the janitors' exit up at the front by the waiting room or near the examination rooms, but it has to be on the first floor. There's no other place it could be than this hallway."

Ella hesitated, staring at the door. She could still see the blood dripping down the windows from where Dr. Morning shot the young woman whose corpse was now laying motionless on the ground.

"What else can we do?" Ian asked softly, kneeling down in front of her and turning her head so she was looking him in the eyes. "We can't jump out of the windows. The alarm system would go off and attract way too much attention, attention we don't need right now."

"I know, but..." Ella closed her eyes. "I'm scared, Ian."

"I know." Ian wrapped his arms around her in a hug. "It'll be okay. I promise you. But we have to get out of here, or else who knows what could happen to us?"

Taking a shaky breath, Ella nodded and opened her eyes. "Okay. Let's just get this over with."

Ian gave her a small smile, then stood up and walked over to their palettes. He grabbed their jackets and tossed Ella hers. "As soon as I open the door, we run as quietly as we can to the end of the hall. If you see something that looks like it leads outside, or a janitor's closet or storeroom, just drag me in that direction."

"What if we don't find anything?"

"We'll run back here and take our chances with the windows, I guess. You ready?"

"Not really, but I guess I wasn't built to be ready to run through zombie-infested hallways so let's just go." Ella zipped her jacket up and grabbed Ian's arm.

He nodded and unlocked the door, then placed his hand on the doorknob. "Keep your hand on my arm. Don't let go." He hesitated a few moments, took a deep breath, and opened the door.

They stepped out into the hallway. For the time being, the hallway they were in was free of others, though they could hear frantic shouting and movement in the hallways around them. They could also hear snarling and the sound of gunfire in the floor above, alongside more screaming.

"C'mon," Ian whispered, and they took off down the hall toward the elevator that lead to the second floor, jumping over the woman's corpse slumped against the wall. Ella tried not to throw up when she smelled the rotting flesh, though she suspected that it came with having the virus more than it did having your head blown to pieces.

She looked around the hallway as fast as she could, checking the plaques beside each doorway as they ran past. It was difficult, because Ian was dragging her along so fast that the plaques became bronze blurs with black lines. _Office 109, Dr. Rebecca Chung... Office 110, Dr. Tyson Thomas... Janitor Storeroom... Office 111, Dr. Isabella Sanchez..._

"Ian wait!" she whispered, skidding to a stop and jerking his arm. "We just passed a janitors' closet!"

Ian stopped and turned around. "Where?"

"The blue door, right on the other side of this office." She pointed at it and began walking in that direction, padding silently down in the tile in her soft winter boots.

She almost couldn't believe it. They were about to get out, safe and sound!

"Fuck, Ella, stop!" Ian warned, and reached out to grab her arm and jerk her back.

"Ow! What was that for?" Ella cried.

Ian clapped his hand over her mouth. "_Listen_!"

They were almost directly in front of the office door on the other side of the janitors' closet. From inside the office, they could hear the sound of growling and something tearing. Ella got a sickening sensation that it was the sound of tearing flesh.

The two of them glanced into the office through the windows on either side of the door. They could see a group of three infected patients kneeling over the body of a doctor not much older than 35, with pretty ebony hair spilling out onto the floor and mixing with the pool of scarlet blood draining from the gash in her head. The infected were ripping off pieces of her flesh and shoving them in their mouth, fighting and growling with each other when two went for the same section.

"We have to keep completely silent so we don't attract their attention," Ian said, so quietly that he may as well have been mouthing the words. Ella nodded, and they tiptoed past the office.

"Okay, I think we're good now," Ian whispered into Ella's ear, looking behind them to make sure they passed the windows and the door.

Ella smiled, her eyes on the storeroom door. She could almost feel the cool winter breeze against her cheeks. They were almost free of the hellhole that had become Mercy Hospital.

Just then, a figure appeared at the end of the hallway. Ella's heart dropped to her stomach, and she silently prayed that it was a doctor or a nurse, someone who saw them as a friend in dire need of help rather than an early morning snack.

The figure took a step closer, and Ella could see that it was an infected patient, his eyes a bright cherry-red.

_Rutilus Oculus Aegrotatio. The Red-Eye Illness. The Rage Virus._

"Ian," Ella whispered, poking him in the arm. He turned and saw the figure, and began stringing together a long list of quiet swear words.

The infected patient continued to approach them slowly, his eyes burning with hunger, his bloody lips babbling softly. Soon he began to move faster, perhaps seeing that they were something edible.

"Go Ella, go!" Ian cried, and urged her toward the storeroom door. She lunged at it and fumbled with the doorknob. The infected patient shrieked, producing a high-pitched, gruesome growl, and started charging toward them. The three infected patients from the office to their right, obviously hearing their companion's call, began banging and scratching at the door between them and the hallway, desperately trying to get out to see what they could eat now.

Just as they managed to bust the door open, Ella twisted the doorknob just right so it opened. She ran into the storeroom with Ian on her heels. He slammed the door behind them and locked it. As an extra precaution, he grabbed a full laundry bin and pushed it in front of the door as a form of a blockade.

Ella stood in the center of the room, bent over with her hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath. Ian leaned against the laundry bin and closed his eyes to slow his heartbeat. They could hear all four of the infected patients climbing over each other on the other side of the door, fighting to get inside.

"Are you okay?" Ian finally asked, standing up straight.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Ella swallowed a lump in her throat and stood up. She gazed around the storeroom. "So where's this back door you were telling me about? All I see are bottles of PineSol and dirty hospital gowns."

"Gimme a second, I'll find it," Ian insisted, and looked around the room. Ella sighed and plopped down on an overturned mop bucket, resting her elbow on her knee and supporting her chin with her hand.

"Found it!" he cried, and pushed an empty laundry bin and a janitor's cart out of the way. Sure enough, there was a dark green door with a small barred-up square window at the top. He grinned triumphantly at Ella, his hands on his hips. "Did I tell you or did I tell you?"

"My hero," Ella said sarcastically, standing up and rolling her eyes. "Let's just go. If I have to spend one more second in this damn hospital I'm gonna scream." She reached the door and turned the knob. It didn't budge. "Hey, hero, tell me you've got a key hidden in somewhere in those pajama pants of yours."

Ian sighed and began digging around the shelves for a key. Ella examined the keyhole. "Wait, I can pick this."

"How?" Ian asked, obviously irritated.

She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a few bobby pins. "When I took my hair down before I slept I shoved the bobby pins in here. Good thing, huh?"

Ian merely grumbled a reply.

Sticking the pin in the keyhole, Ella rummaged around a bit with the gears. Soon she heard a click, and when she tested the doorknob it turned easily. She looked over her shoulder at Ian and smiled wide from ear to ear.

"Yeah yeah. Let's just find my truck and leave," Ian mumbled.

They headed out the back door and headed in the direction of the parking garage. No one was outside, save for a few early morning pedestrians; the entire city outside of the hospital was completely oblivious to the upheaval inside the white brick building, it seemed.

Once underneath the cover of the parking garage, Ella was scared that they would come across more infected patients. After all, she'd seen enough horror movies, let alone zombie movies. Parking garages, especially when it was dark outside, were the worst places to be. It was always when the murderer would jump out, when the haunting spirit would swoop in, or when the zombies would march toward the unsuspecting, vulnerable human being.

Luckily, it appeared as though none of the infected patients managed to escape the hospital, and they reached Ian's truck without difficulty.

"What do we do now?" Ella asked, as soon as they were back on the road and headed away from the hospital. She could feel the tension slide from her shoulders as soon as the building disappeared over the horizon in the mirrors.

"It's almost five," Ian told her, checking the clock on the radio. "Why don't we head back to the complex to shower and change? I need to check up on stuff anyway. Then we'll grab a bite to eat to settle our stomachs and then we can visit the police department and see if they've found your sister in the past few hours since Dr. Morning called."

"I hope they have," Ella softly mused, staring out at the road.

Ian looked over at her, then reached over and grabbed her hand, squeezing it softly. "She'll be fine, Ella. I'm sure of it."

They continued toward the complex in silence, both replaying the memory of Dr. Morning blasting the woman's head off in their heads involuntarily.


	5. Crisis at Mercy Hospital

Back at the complex, Ian began walking into the landlord's apartment. He looked over his shoulder and called back to her, "Go up to your sister's apartment and shower and change. I'll meet you up there in about twenty minutes."

"I can't!" Ella cried back, grabbing his arm. "The only bathroom is the one connecting to her room, and I can't shower in there." The vision of the puddle of blood, of Jenna doubled over in hysterics and pain, flashed through her memory.

Ian sighed. "Do you have clothes you can change into?"

"I can fit into some of Jenna's things."

"Okay. I'll go take a shower and leave my door unlocked. You run up and grab a change of clothes, and come down here. You can shower after me."

"Thank you," Ella said softly, hugging him quickly and dashing up the stairs to Jenna's apartment.

Without even glancing at the bathroom door, Ella went into Jenna's room and dug through her closet. Jenna was always thinner than she was, with much smaller features, but eventually Ella found a long-sleeved t-shirt and a pair of dark jeans that would fit her.

She brought the clothes back down with her to the landlord's apartment. It was much bigger than Jenna's apartment, and Ian's father had managed to make it quite cozy. The couch and matching chair were a deep wine color, and the lamp on the end table beside it was glowing brightly. She could hear the shower going in the background, and laid her clothes on the plush chair so she could look around at the pictures. Almost every one was of Ian throughout the stages of his life; smiling for a school picture with his front two teeth missing, posing with a baseball bat at a Little League game, dressed up as a vampire for a night of Trick or Treating. There were also the awkward pictures from his teenage years, though they were few of those. Ella could tell that he went from adorable as a child to quite attractive as a teenager, and since then he'd only grown even more handsome.

Sometime during Ella's wandering around the living room, the water had stopped. The sound of Ian's voice pulled her out of her thoughts.

"The shower's all yours. Towels are in the cabinet above the hamper. Take as many as you need."

Ella turned and saw him standing in the bedroom doorway, his brown hair wet and sticking to his forehead. He wore nothing but a towel around his waist. She felt her cheeks turning pink to see him like that.

"I'll be in here changing while you're in the shower, but then I'll probably come in here and watch some television," he said, turning and walking toward a duffel bag on the floor. Even though he couldn't see her anymore, Ella nodded, and scurried toward the bathroom.

When she was in the shower, she let the warm water spill over her and relax her tense muscles. For the first time that night she was able to forget about the horrific images she'd seen and just close her eyes to relax.

Once she felt clean enough, she got out of the shower and wrapped a towel around her body. It was then that she remembered that she'd left her clothes in the living room. _Dammit, and Ian's in there_, she thought angrily, mentally kicking herself.

Slowly, she opened the bathroom door and looked out. Ian wasn't in the bedroom, but she could hear the television blaring in the living room and knew he must be in there. _With my clothes_.

She tightened the towel around her and walked out to the bedroom door. Opening it up a crack, she saw Ian sitting on the couch staring at the screen. He looked up at her when he saw the door begin to open, and his eyes widened when he saw she was in only a towel.

"Well, this is a hell of a way to greet me," he joked.

"Shut up. I left my clothes in here," Ella scowled, hurrying to the chair and grabbing her clothes. The entire time she could feel his eyes on her.

When she was back in the bedroom she let out a deep breath, her heart pounding against her ribcage. As quickly as she could, she pulled on the clothes she borrowed from Jenna's closet. She went out into the living room and looked at Ian, who was looking up at her with a smirk on his face.

"What, no towel?"

Ella smirked back and threw her pajamas at him. "Sorry, maybe next time. Come on, I'm starving, and I wanna get to the police department as soon as possible to see if they've found Jenna."

"I'm going, I'm going," Ian said, turning the television off with the remote and standing up. "Where are we eating?"

"Anywhere. I don't care. I just wanna eat and talk to the police."

Ian nodded and ushered her out the door. Outside, the horizon was turning pink and orange, indicating the sun was about to rise.

They got back into his truck and headed for a McDonald's downtown. "Do you think they managed to get things at the hospital under control after we left?" Ella asked, though she knew the answer would be _No_.

Ian shrugged. "I wish I could say yes, but it seems more likely that they didn't. It was pretty hectic."

"Yeah..." Ella looked out the window as they pulled into the McDonald's parking lot. Once inside, she ordered a pancake meal with an orange juice while Ian asked for an egg mcmuffin and a Dr. Pepper.

"That's not exactly breakfast food," Ella told him as they sat down with their food.

"I'm not exactly a breakfast guy," Ian replied, taking a sip of his drink.

As they ate, they attempted to make typical small talk. None of the people around them would suspect the ordeals they had witnessed that night; to the elderly couple on their left, or the two heavyset truckers behind them, they were two friends, or perhaps a young couple, out for an early breakfast before getting a headstart on their day.

The television was blaring in the back corner. A children's cartoon was on, and Ella watched the animated cat play tug of war with a flock of chickens while she ate her pancakes.

"This just in," they heard, and both looked up at the television. The cartoon had cut off and was replaced by a newsanchor sitting behind a desk. "Crisis at Mercy Hospital."

Ian and Ella looked at each other silently.

"Overnight, a power outage in the second floor's eastern wing, containing a mysteriously guarded intensive care unit, caused the hospital's security system to crash. The aforementioned intensive care unit was left indefensible, giving the patients inside, infected with an unknown illness, an ability to escape; with this, pandemonium broke out inside the hospital. It is now believed that a vast majority of the infected patients who were not subdued by hospital personnel managed to flee the hospital and are now loose somewhere in the city. We now go live to Mercy police chief Rodger Quince, speaking with reporters outside of the hospital."

Ella clenched her fork so hard that her knuckles turned white. The others in the restaurant - both the customers and those behind the counters and in the kitchen - were standing out where they could watch the television and listen to the news story.

"Chief Quince, what exactly happened in that hospital?" a reporter asked, her notebook and pen ready for his answer.

Chief Quince rubbed his temple with his fat, pink fingers, before replying. "We've gathered enough physical evidence and witness testimony that states that when the infected patients escaped the ICU, they began attacking the hospital personnel around them. Some of the doctors and nurses were able to subdue the patients with handguns, heavy objects, or anything else that could be used to inflict damage as a form of self-defense."

"Has any of the medical staff been pronounced dead?"

"A total of five doctors, three nurses, and two of the janitors have been pronounced dead by the coroner, as well as a number of patients in examination rooms throughout the hospital and a few of the patients from the guarded ICU."

"How did they die?"

"Many of the patients from the ICU were shot or bludgeoned in the head. The other patients and the medical staff..." Chief Quince hesitated. "The other patients and members of the staff appear to be eaten. Some alive, some after they were dead."

For once, all the reporters were silent.

"We know that out of the twenty patients secured in the ICU, sixteen have fled the hospital grounds and are now roaming somewhere in the city. The citizens of Mercy are warned that if they see any, to call the police department and not approach a single one. They are dangerous, and each carries a virus. I speak for the police department as well as myself and members of Mercy Hospital's personnel when I say that we do not want more of this virus spread around the city," Chief Quince said firmly, his eyes on the camera.

"Chief Quince, what is this virus?"

Chief Quince looked to his left, off-camera, and nodded. "I have a surviving doctor from the hospital here who could answer that much better than I could."

The police chief moved to the side, and Dr. Morning stepped in his place. He appeared shaken, and his doctor's coat was speckled with blood. There was even a few drops of it on his cheek. Despite his nervous demeanor, he spoke with the same clear, strong voice that he used when speaking with Ian and Ella earlier that night.

"My name is Dr. Michael Morning, and I was one of the doctors overlooking the intensive care unit with the infected patients," he began. "The virus in question is a mysterious one, and admittedly research hasn't concluded all that much about it. We do know, however, that it is carried by bodily fluid. If someone infected with the virus gets their saliva or blood on you, you're safe; just remember to wash it off before it has the chance to get inside your body. If it does manage to get inside you, however, then get yourself to a doctor or the nearest hospital that you can. Other than Mercy."

"What are the symptoms?" a reporter asked.

"Similar to the flu. Sneezing, coughing, high fevers. They may disappear but they will come back, and then be accompanied by the patient vomiting blood, experiencing spasms, and unable to communicate. It also changes the eye color of the infected to a deep scarlet. There is no cure as of yet -."

Ella couldn't listen to anymore. She stood up and walked out of the restaurant, then climbed into Ian's truck. Within seconds, he was opening the driver's side door.

"They got out," Ella said, her voice a dead monotone. "They're out there, roaming the streets. Jenna's out there, Ian, we have to find her!"

"I know." Ian started the truck and pulled out of the parking lot. "Do you still wanna try the police department? It seems as if the entire force is at the hospital, but they're bound to have an officer or two left at the department for emergency calls."

Ella nodded, staring at the dashboard.

Ian drove the truck to the police department. As soon as the engine was off, Ella opened the door and ran inside. An officer was sitting at a desk in the corner, and he looked up, surprised, when he saw her run in.

"Can I help you?" he asked, confused.

"My name is Stella Park, and my sister went missing this morning, around two or two-thirty. Someone called and asked the police to search for her," Ella blabbered all at once. "Have they found anything?"

The officer pointed at the seat in front of his desk, then started to search through a stack of papers in a file. Ian walked in, and sat down beside Ella silently.

After a few moments of digging through the file, the officer pulled out a sheet of paper. He scanned it, then shook his head and shoved it back into the file. "I'm sorry, Miss Park, but we haven't had an opportunity to act on that. There was a crisis at the hospital and -."

"Yes, I know," Ella snapped. She was really beginning to hate that word. _Crisis._

"I'm sorry," the officer apologized. Instead of replying, Ella stood up and walked out, with Ian following her.

"What do we do now?" he asked her as they got back into his truck.

"We go find her ourselves," Ella told him, determined. "I don't care how long it takes. I'm going to find my sister and that's that."

Ian nodded. "I'll help you, just like I have been for the past four hours, Ella, don't worry about that," he said, finishing it off with a yawn.

His yawn sent off a chain reaction, and Ella began to yawn. They laughed softly. "I think we need rest before we set off on our scavenger hunt for your sister."

"Yeah... I can't go back into her apartment," Ella said quietly, wringing her hands. "It's too... too hard."

"You can sleep in mine, it's okay. You can take the bed, I'll take the couch."

"I couldn't ask you to do that," she said, shaking her head.

"I insist." Ian turned and smiled at her.

Ella smiled back. They made their way back to the complex, and went into the landlord's apartment where Ian was staying. He laid a blanket and a pillow on the couch, then gave Ella a quick hug.

"I'm right in here if you need me, okay?"

She nodded, and went into the bedroom. Curling up under the covers, laying down on a real bed for the first time that night, felt so marvelous that soon she was fast asleep.


	6. Home Sweet Home

Ella was running through a dark forest, with nothing to defend herself but a small pistol. Her heart was racing and her breath was ragged. Her clothes were dirty and disheveled, and she was sore and aching. She knew that she shouldn't be alone, and yet she was.

She could've sworn she heard someone scream "We're over here!" and took a step in that direction.

And then she heard it. Heavy breathing, followed by a snarling sound, coming out of the bushes to her right.

Ella froze, frightened. She moved to raise her pistol toward the sound when all of a sudden someone charged out of the bushes. They smacked the pistol from her hand and knocked her down, pinning her to the ground. She tried to kick and push them off of her.

It was a woman, yet at the same time it wasn't. Through his snarling lips she could see her teeth were coated with blood. Her skin was the color of cigarette ashes, and dark purple circles lined her eyes. Her eyes were what really drew her attention; they glowed an intense red, as if on fire.

The woman's face twisted into a grotesque, bloody grin and began to whisper: _Rutilus Oculus Aegrotatio. The Red-Eye Illness._

_The Rage Virus._

Ella shot up, screaming. She was drenched in a cold sweat, her clothes and the comforter sticking to her. She kept trying to push the woman off of her, even though she was awake now.

"Ella, Ella!" Ian cried, running into the room. He sat beside her on the bed and wrapped his arms around her. "Shhhh," he said softly, smoothing down her hair and trying to calm her down. "It's okay, it was just a nightmare."

She opened her eyes and looked around the room. It was lit up by the morning sun spilling in through the windows. She was safe, and there was no one around who was trying to attack her, no woods through which she was running. Gasping for air, she fell back against the pillows.

"What happened?" Ian asked, watching her.

"I was running through the woods, and this woman... she was infected... attacked me, and..." Ella shook her head and covered her eyes. "I had a similar dream earlier, before I woke up and found Jenna."

Ian sighed and patted her arm. "Go back to sleep, Ella. You were only out for about half an hour, and you need your sleep after everything. And especially if we're gonna go try and find your sister."

"I can't go back to sleep after that," she told him, removing her hands from her face and laying them on her stomach.

Ian thought a moment. "What if I sleep with you?"

"_What?!_"

"No no no, not like that!" he cried, holding his hands up in defense. "I meant it like... what if I slept in the chair in the corner? That way if you start freaking out again I can calm you down, hopefully before you wake up."

Ella hesitated for a few minutes. "Okay. I guess that could work."

Ian smiled and sat down in the chair. He closed his eyes and laid his head back on the back of the chair. "Good night, Ella. Try and get some sleep."

Ella laid down on her side and yawned. "Good night, Ian."

Later that day, they were back in Ian's truck. Ella had finally managed to sleep for about four hours straight with Ian in the room. When she'd woken up, she showered and got dressed, then watched news reports about the hospital on television while Ian showered and changed. Nothing had changed, except that a few more were found dead in the hospital. A couple of people called in and claimed that they saw the infected patients on the streets, one even claiming that he just barely escaped from getting bitten. Before they left, Ian asked a tenant to keep an eye on the complex while they were gone, to which the man gave them a look that clearly indicated that he thought there was some sort of romantic involvement between the two.

"So where are we headed to?" Ian asked, pulling into a gas station. They'd been running around so much over the past twelve hours that the truck was on it's last few drops.

"I'd like to run by my dorm, if you don't mind," Ella said, getting out of the truck and heading into the station to grab some food for lunch. "I wanna pack a small bag of clothes and necessities."

Inside the station, Ella grabbed two bottles of Pepsi, a bag of cool ranch Doritos, and two Hershey bars with almond. She paid for the food and went back to the truck. "I bought yours, don't worry," she told Ian, holding the bag up.

"Thanks," he said, smiling and putting the gas nozzle back into the pump. He got into the truck and twisted open the Pepsi Ella handed to him. "Where do you go to school?" he asked her after taking a long swig.

"North Mercy," she replied, digging into the Dorito bag.

"Oh, the rich kids' college. Friend of mine went there. Said there was some bitch who taught Economics that constantly kicked him out of class if he fell asleep."

"Mrs. Wells. I've got her," Ella said, laughing. "She's okay, as long as you're on her good side."

"Jacob obviously wasn't." Ian laughed and shoved a chip in his mouth, then started the engine. "North Mercy University, here we come."

An hour later, they pulled into the driveway for the dorms at North Mercy University. The school was in front of the school, looking out over a lush quad full of trees and bushes, now bare from the winter chill.

The dorm was large, with two dark wooden doors opening up to the lobby that looked more like it belonged in a receptionist area for a CEO or an office building. Inside, Ella fished through her jacket pocket and pulled out her keys, then gestured toward the stairs for Ian's benefit. "Up here," she told him, jerking his attention away from the pristine cleanness of the lobby.

She lead him up to the second floor of dorms, then to her room in the center of the rows of doors lining the hallway.

"Do you have a roommate?" Ian asked as they stepped in.

"Yeah. Her name's Rachel. She's been out of school for the past few weeks though. She had some sort of surgery on her knee and her parents wanted her at home to keep a better eye on her progress." Ella closed the door behind them.

The dorm looked just as nice as the apartments in Ian's father's building. The front door opened up into a joint living room-kitchen, with a small hallway in the back corner with two doors leading to the bedrooms. Another door in the opposite corner lead to the bathroom, Ian guessed.

"You can come in my room so you don't feel so awkward just standing there," Ella told him, leading him to the hallway. She opened up the first door to a decent-sized bedroom. A bed was in the corner, haphazardly made up with a baby blue-and-purple striped comforter. An empty purple laundry hamper sat in the other corner, beside a small trashcan. The main focus of the room, however, was obviously the large black metal desk covered in textbooks and papers. A silver flatscreen computer monitor sat on top of it.

"Nice computer," Ian said, sitting down on her bed.

"Thanks. It was a birthday gift from my parents when I turned 19," Ella replied, opening her closet and pulling out a small green duffel bag. She grabbed a few articles of clothing from the closet and shoved them in there, then opened a dresser drawer and pulled out a bra and underwear change. "I'll be right back. I'm gonna grab my toothbrush and toothpaste from the bathroom."

Left alone in the room, Ian looked around. A stack of books sat on the nightstand, and he examined some of the titles._ Little Women, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_. She seemed to enjoy the classics. He got up and looked at the pictures decorating the walls and the desk. There were some from her childhood, standing beside another redheaded girl whom Ian presumed was Jenna, her sister. Most, however, were from her high school or college years, posing with friends at homecoming dances, parties, mall trips, and one from prom. She was always a pretty girl, he could tell.

"You're back!" he heard, and turned just in time to see a girl run into the room. She had on jeans and a red jacket, with her brown hair pulled back in a ponytail.

The girl skidded to a stop when she saw Ian standing in the room. "You're not Ella," she said, raising an eyebrow.

"No, but I am." Ella walked into the room just then carrying her toiletries, beaming, in a fresh change of clothes. The brunette girl turned around and squealed, throwing her arms around Ella in a hug. Ian felt awkward, standing in the corner of the room watching this.

"Zoey, this is Ian. He's the landlord's son at my sister's complex," she said, pointing from one to the other. "Ian, this is my best friend, Zoey."

"Pleased to meet you," Zoey greeted him, waving. "I didn't know you'd be sneaking older men into the dorm, or I would've brought a couple of my own."

Ella smirked, putting her belongings in the bag and zipping it up. "Ian's helping me with... something."

"Uh huh, I bet he is," Zoey leered, crossing her arms under her breasts. Ella smacked her on the arm and she laughed. "I heard your door open and close and then when I came to investigate I heard rustling inside, but I knew Rachel wouldn't be back already so I knew it had to be you." She wrapped an arm through Ella's. "When you were gone for so long I didn't think I'd see you again until after Winter Break."

"I told you I was staying at my parents' house for a week or two," Ella reminded her. She looked back at Ian to fill him in. "My mom was in a car wreck and it messed up her wrist, so I offered to stay and look after her while my dad was away on a business trip." She turned back to Zoey. "My sister found out she was pregnant while I was there so I was running back and forth between her apartment and my parents' house the whole time."

"Jen's pregnant?" Zoey asked, and smiled, clapping her hands. "That's wonderful!"

Ella looked back at Ian, then cleared her throat and nodded. "Yeah, it's great. I have to head off though."

"What? Why?" Zoey asked, frowning. "You just got back."

"I know, but I'm having a... a bit of a family emergency," she said, slinging the duffel bag over her shoulder and walking out of the room. "I was only here to stock up on clean clothes."

"What emergency? Is it something with your mom?" Zoey asked, following her. Ian stayed back, letting Ella handle the situation the way she saw best.

She looked at him, then sighed and looked back at Zoey. "It's Jenna. She's gone missing and I need to find her."

"Missing? Like... she's been kidnapped?"

"Not exactly. She ran away."

Zoey was quiet for a moment. "I'm sorry Ella, I really am," she said, hugging her friend tightly. "Is that what he's helping you with?" She jerked her thumb in Ian's direction.

"Yeah. She disappeared this morning and he was the only person who offered to help me," Ella said, hugging Zoey back and looking at Ian over her shoulder, flashing him a small grin.

"Do you want me to help you try and find her?"

"It's fine," Ella told her friend, smiling and holding a hand up. "I know you've skipped too much school. I don't wanna be the cause of you getting kicked out of North Mercy, and I know Jenna wouldn't either."

"I'm on the dean's list, and not the good one," Zoey joked, before giving Ella one last hug. "Call me if you need anything, okay?"

Ella nodded, and watched her leave the room and head back down the hall to her own dorm. Then she turned back to Ian. "So... that's Zoey."

"She's... a whirlwind," he said, running a hand through his hair.

"Yeah, she's a bit of a loaded pistol." Ella grabbed her keys and ushered him out of the room so she could lock the front door. "She doesn't like feeling confined. I guess that's why she's never in class; she shows up about once a week, and the rest of the time she's in her dorm watching old horror movies and drinking beer. I didn't wanna tell her about the infected patients roaming around the city, because she'd think it was just some one of her zombie games." She sighed and shrugged. "Oh well, let's try and find my sister."

Ian nodded, and together they walked back down the stairs and out to Ian's truck. "Any idea where we're going next?" he asked, pulling out onto the street.

"Maybe my parents' house," Ella suggested, tugging at the hem of her shirt. "Even if she's not there, maybe my mom can keep an eye out for her."

"You shouldn't worry your mom like that, though," Ian told her. "I don't think she'd take it lightly if she knew what was wrong with your sister, especially if she's already heard about all of these infected patients escaping the hospital."

Ella was quiet for a moment. "Can we at least run by there?" she asked. "I want to make sure nothing happened to her, that none of the..."

Ian nodded. "I understand," he said, reaching over and grabbing her hand. "Where does she live?"

"Fox Ridge."

Ian nodded again, and turned in the truck in the direction of the neighborhood. After a few moments of silence, Ella spoke again. "So I know you're looking after Jenna's complex while your dad's away, but what do you actually do?"

"I work for the Mercy branch of an internet company based in Seattle," he replied. "When I'm not babysitting my dad's apartments, which I seem to be doing more and more of lately while he goes gallavanting off to New York to visit his girlfriend younger than I am, I live just outside of the city, in Trent."

Ella nodded. "That's not so bad. I've visited Trent before, it's a nice town."

Ian shrugged. "I guess."

They drove on in silence until they reached Fox Ridge, a nice upperclass neighborhood just outside of downtown Mercy. Ian gazed at all of the houses with fountains and sundials in the front yards, tall stained glass windows that reached the roofs, and ornate staircases leading up to rich dark oak doors, and whistled in a low tune. "Jesus, Ella. Your parents live here, you're going to North Mercy, you've got a computer that could kick my own ass, let alone my computer's... your family's pretty rich, I'd say."

"We've got a moderately nice income flow," Ella said modestly. "Turn left up here, then right at the end until you reach the cul de sac. It's the house with the lawn gnome out front."

"Lawn gnome?" Ian repeated, snickering.

"Shut up, it was a gift from my grandmother."

They pulled up outside of Ella's parents' house and Ian killed the engine. The house was a two-story red brick, with a large white staircase leading to a dark wooden front door flanked by white columns. Ella stared up at the second story windows, at the one she knew was her parents' bedroom, and sucked in a deep breath. _God, please let Mom be okay._

"Do you wanna come in with me or stay out here?" she asked Ian, looking at him as she opened the passenger door.

"I'd better come in with you. You know... just in case."

Ella nodded grimly, and together they walked up the steps to the front door. She fished out her keys from her purse and unlocked it. Pushing the door open, they walked into the large foyer with marble floors and a high ceiling, lit up by a grand silver chandelier. The mail from the day before was laying on a table to the right, next to a staircase that lead to the second floor.

"Mom?" Ella called into the living room in front of them. There was no answer back. "C'mon, let's check upstairs. She might be napping off the painkillers she got for her wrist." She grabbed Ian's hand and lead him up the staircase.

The stairs ended in a long hallway with family portraits lining the walls. Each had two young girls - Jenna and Ella - at varying ages, both sporting vibrant red hair and big grins that lifted up higher on the left side, causing the girls to look as if they were smirking.

Ella lead Ian to the end of the hallway and knocked on the door. "Mom?"

Just like before, no answer. Ella shared a look with Ian and tried again, this time knocking louder. "Mom, are you in there?"

Silence was all that replied.

Trying the doorknob and finding it unlocked, Ella opened the door and walked into the master bedroom. It was spacious, with a large four poster bed and a huge window that faced the woods behind the house.

The only thing that wasn't supposed to be there was the scarlet stain on the edge of the comforter, haphazardly strewn across the foot of the bed as if it was kicked off of someone in a hurry.

"Oh my God," Ella whispered, holding her hand over her mouth. "Mom?" she called again, her voice shaky.

No answer.

"God, Ian, what happened here?" she asked, even though she knew he didn't have an answer.

Ian shook his head, not tearing his eyes from the blood-soaked bed. "If I could tell you, Ella, I would. But..."

A groaning sound interrupted him.

They both turned to face down the hallway. Standing at the other end of the hall was a middle-aged woman, appearing to be around 45, staring back at them. Her eyes were a bright ruby color, the pupils a shade of yellow so dark it could have passed for black. A small trickle of blood dripped from the corner of her mouth to her blouse, ending in a continuously growing stain.

"Mom?" Ella said in a hushed tone, her heart beating rapidly.

Ella's mother - at least, the infected version of her - shrieked and began sprinting down the hallway toward them, screaming jumbled nonsense all the while. Ella froze, too frightened to scream or move, or anything else she'd been taught in her self-defense classes. The only thing she could think of was _That's your mom._

When her mother was close to four foot away from them, a sudden burst of light and a cloud of smoke filled the air, and Ella's mother fell to the ground. The bullethole in her head began to bleed furiously, creating a pool on the hall carpet to match the one on the comforter in the bedroom.

Slowly Ella turned and saw Ian's extended arm holding a small, smoking pistol. His eyes were wide and his mouth was slightly agape in an expression that clearly indicated he was surprised at himself for what he did as much as Ella was.

"Ian... where did you get that pistol?" she asked, her voice breaking.

"I packed it with my stuff while you were in the shower this morning," he replied monotonously. "Just in case."

They both stared at the now lifeless, infected body of Ella's mother, both too in shock to show any sort of emotion whatsoever.


	7. Office Space

Ian sat down at the dining room table beside Ella, handing her a glass of water. She merely stared into it, watching the ice swirl around inside.

They'd carefully maneuvered their way around the body and went back down the stairs. In the living room, they'd found that the sliding glass doors leading out to the backyard were broken, the glass shattered across the carpet. From what they could presume, an infected patient had managed to break the glass and run up to attack Ella's mother.

"Where do you think that patient is?" Ella asked now, her voice dead. She didn't look Ian in the eye; instead she simply continued to watch her water.

"I'm not sure. I checked the rest of the house and didn't see or hear anything else to prove a patient was inside." Ian sighed. "Ella I'm sorry I shot her, but I had to or else she would've tried to bite either one of us, maybe even kill."

Ella nodded. "I understand, Ian. I'm not upset with you, I promise." She raised her head and looked him in the eyes. "I just... it's scary. She was my mother and she was infected. I know that you had to do it, I just wish she hadn't been infected so it didn't have to happen." She finished with a sigh, and finally took the first sip of her water.

"I'm sorry Ella."

"Don't be." Ella reached out and laid her hand on his knee. "Like I said, I understand. I'm not mad. I'm just upset at the situation, if that makes any sense."

Ian nodded. "It does. Somehow."

He watched Ella drink all of her water before he stood up. "We should probably get a move on. This proves that there's at least one patient in the area. We don't wanna be here when it shows up. It might bring some friends."

Nodding, Ella left the table and lead the way to the front door. She didn't even glance at the staircase out of the corner of her eye. She pulled the door open and began to leave when she spotted the mail from the day before on the table. On the top was a letter addressed to her mother, from her father on his business trip in California.

"Wait." She reached out and grabbed the letter. "Okay, let's go. I don't care where, just somewhere that's not Fox Ridge."

Understanding, Ian put an arm around her shoulder and helped guide her to the truck. He assisted her as she got into the passenger's seat, making sure she was stable enough not to fall, before getting in on the driver's side and starting the engine.

As they drove, Ella opened the letter and read it silently.

_Dear Olivia,_

_California's not as great as it's cracked up to be. It's not all Hollywood glitz and glamour. But I did manage to get you that Meryl Streep autograph you wanted! She and I go out for dinner all the time. We're almost best friends now. Okay, I'm kidding. I just wanted to cheer you up. I know you've been a little down since the wreck and all the doctor's visits, but just remember that they're finally over!_

_The company manager just informed me today that he plans to promote me again when I return from the trip. Isn't that wonderful sweetheart? We can finally afford to send Ella to that film college in New York she's been bugging us about for so many years. It'll be a nice birthday present next year, don't you think so?_

_And more good news... they said that I'll be coming back home to Mercy in two weeks! I'm so ecstatic; I can't wait to see you again. And the girls. I was so excited to read in your last letter that I'll be a grandfather soon. I wish that Dillon boy hadn't run out on Jenna, but at least now she can find someone much more suited for her._

_I'm being summoned to another lunch meeting, my dear, but I'll write back as soon as I can. And, as always, I'll call you on Sunday. All my love to you and the girls._

_Love,  
Robert_

When Ella folded the letter back up to slip it back into the envelope, she felt tears rushing down her cheeks. She tried to brush them away quickly so Ian wouldn't see them, but of course he did.

"What did it say?" he asked, nodding at the letter.

"It was my dad," she told him. "He said he was getting promoted and wanted to use the extra money to pay my way to a real college, one that helps me learn film production, up in New York. My dream college. He's also coming back home in two weeks." _To a now-empty house_. She didn't need to say it. It hung in the air.

It was quiet in the truck, the silence pressing on their ears heavily. Clouds were rolling in quickly, and the air began to smell like rain. Neither knew where to go or what to do in the midst of the havoc in their city.

"Where do you think your sister might be?" Ian asked in an attempt to break the silence and get Ella's mind on something else.

Ella shrugged. "You heard the doctor last night. God knows where she could be with the way she is from the virus."

"Do you think that maybe there's some part of her from before she was infected that's still in there?" Ian suggested.

"What do you mean?"

"Like..." Ian sighed. "How to explain this... do you think that there's a part of Jenna that hasn't been hit by the virus yet, her memory or her conscience or something like that, and it might subconsciously be directing her to different places?"

Ella thought a moment. "I guess there's a chance that would happen."

"Then maybe we should check different places she might have frequented before she got sick, like her job or something."

Shaking her head, Ella looked out the window at the dark grey clouds forming overhead. "She worked from home, writing articles for a paper." Sighing, she ran her fingers through her hair. "Why don't we try Dillon's office? That's where all this started anyway. I know she used to go there about three times a week to eat lunch with him. It's all I can think of."

Ian nodded. "Sounds like a plan." He glanced over at Ella. "Don't worry Ella, we'll find her."

"I hope so," she replied in a hushed tone as the first few raindrops began to hit the truck's windshield.

"This is the building," Ella said after a few minutes, pointing at the large office building on their left.

Ian pulled over and killed the engine. They both got out of the truck and stared up at the building. It was easily 15 stories tall, with mirrored windows decorating the outside. The rain was pouring in a steady drizzle now, but neither of them cared too much; they had more on their plate to worry about than wet hair and clothes.

Ella looked at Ian and together they made their way to the front door. However, when they tried to pull it open, it refused to budge.

"It's locked," Ella said, confused. Lights were on inside, and the parking lot was full. _What's going on?_

"Hey!" Ian called, cupping his hands around his eyes to block out the glare so he could gaze into the building. "Open up!"

"Get the hell off of that door!" they heard a loud, booming voice call back from somewhere inside. Startled, they jumped back. "Are you infected?

"No, we're not infected!" Ella cried. "We're healthy!"

"How do I know that for sure?"

"We can speak, can't we?" Ian snapped. "They've made it clear that those infected with the virus can't speak coherently."

The voice was silent. After a few moments, it spoke again. "How do I know you haven't been bitten yet?" The voice sounded as if whoever it belonged to was starting to consider actually letting them in.

"Sir, we can assure you we haven't been," Ella said, pushing her sleeves up to show him her arms through the windows, even though she had no idea where he was inside. She elbowed Ian, prompting him to push his own sleeves up and show that he was fine. "You can see better if you'd let us in. Please, sir, it's raining!"

The voice didn't reply. Ella thought that maybe he'd decided to ignore them, hoping they go away. Determined to get inside, she raised her hand to bang on the door again when they heard a clicking sound.

The door opened, and standing there was a tall slim black man. He was dressed in slacks and a white button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His red tie was loosened around his neck, and his smooth, bald head shone in the late afternoon sun. However, Ella's eyes automatically focused on the hand that was hanging at his side, holding a shotgun nonchalantly.

"Come on in, and hurry," he said, ushering them inside. They quickly shuffled into the warm, dry lobby of the building while the man closed and locked the door back up.

Four other people were in the lobby, either sitting in the chairs or on the information desk's counter, watching them. They were all dressed in nice clothes, and Ella presumed that they all worked in the office.

"What are you doing here?" the black man asked, walking around to stand in front of them. He used the shotgun as sort of a cane while he stood, apparently trying to intimidate them.

"We're looking for my sister," Ella replied, her eyes not leaving the gun. Ian reached out and grabbed her hand, giving it a quick, reassuring squeeze.

"Your sister?" The man looked around at the only two women in the lobby besides Ella, and they both shook their heads. "Who's your sister? There are more people upstairs, the ones that didn't wanna leave their floors."

"Oh no, she doesn't work here," Ella told him, shaking her head. "Her boyfriend does. Did."

The man blinked. "So you think she'd be here to see him?"

"No... it's confusing..." Ella sighed, wringing her hands.

"Her sister disappeared overnight and we're trying to figure out where she might've gone," Ian told him. "She's a little messed up mentally and we're just trying to think of all the places she may have gone, places that were familiar to her. We want to find her before she gets caught by one of the infected patients that escaped from the hospital."

The man nodded and laid his shotgun on a coffee table covered in magazines in front of the chairs, much to Ella's relief. "Let me ask around upstairs and see if anyone's seen her. What's she look like?"

"Short red hair. She was wearing an AC/DC shirt," Ella said. The man nodded again and made his way towards the elevator.

Ella and Ian sat down in two chairs in the corner, pretending not to notice the others in the lobby until their interest finally dwindled and they focused on other things.

"Why didn't you say anything about Jenna having the virus?" Ella whispered to him, shaking the hem of her shirt to help air-dry it.

"You saw the shotgun and the way he reacted when we tried to get in and he didn't know if we were infected or not," Ian replied quietly. "He wouldn't have helped us if he knew she was infected. He probably would've laughed in our faces and told us to fuck off or something like that. He's more likely to blow an infected person's head off before checking to see if it's his own mother or not."

Ella cringed, the memory of that afternoon still fresh in her mind.

"Sorry Ella," Ian squeezed her hand again. She shook her head and sighed, closing her eyes and laying her head back against the wall.

"No one upstairs has seen anyone that looks like your sister," they heard. Ella opened her eyes and saw the man coming out of the elevator. "I'm sorry, but it doesn't look like she came around here."

Ella sighed and covered her eyes with her hand, rubbing her temples. This wild goose chase was starting to give her a headache.

"Come on, Ian," she said, standing up. "We'd better find somewhere else Jenna might be."

"Wait." The man lifted his hand, approaching them. "It's getting late and dark, and those things could be anywhere. Why don't the two of you stay here for the night?"

Ella looked at Ian. "What do you think?"

"He has a point, Ella. We don't know how many of the infected patients are around, and there's bound to be more of them around downtown than there would be out in the suburbs. Besides, it's raining. Maybe we should wait it out here until daylight, then we can go looking for Jenna again."

"Okay." Ella turned back to the man. "I guess we're staying here."

He nodded and stuck his hand out for a handshake. "I'm Louis."

They each shook his hand and introduced themselves.

"Sorry for the third degree before I could let you in, by the way," Louis said, plopping down on a chair. "I'm sure you saw the warning to keep your doors locked, right?" They both shook their heads. "What? It was all over television this afternoon."

"We were running around trying to find her sister," Ian told him.

"Ah, gotcha." Louis pulled out a cigarette and a lighter. "Well, about three or so hours after they went public with the massacre at the hospital and the patients escaping, they went back on and said that they wanted everyone to keep their doors locked and not to allow anyone in unless they knew for a fact they weren't infected. Apparently they found a few infected patients and managed to blow their heads apart but there are still a lot roaming around. They even found some people infected who weren't patients from the hospital, meaning that they're attacking and spreading the virus around."

Ella was quiet.

Louis took a long drag on his cigarette and blew the smoke into the air, staring at nothing in particular as he did so. "Few of us were on our lunch break watching the news when they said that. A lot of people ran home immediately to their families, if they had them. The rest of us, the single childless workers, stayed here. Where it's safe." He flicked the cigarette ashes on the floor at his feet. "The rest of 'em are all damn morons, I tell you. We get told to stay locked up and secured and what do they do? Go running home to their husbands and wives who are probably there with their lovers' doing something other than watching the news broadcasts, I can almost guarantee it."

"Louis, enough with the depressing talk," a man on the other side of the lobby said to him. The group of office workers in there with them had managed to dig up a pack of cards for a round of gin rummy.

Louis mumbled under his breath and took another drag on his cigarette.

"I'm really not feeling well," Ella said softly, looking at Ian and then back to Louis. "I think I should go rest, maybe sleep early. We should set out somewhat early in the morning anyway and get a headstart on trying to find my sister."

Louis nodded and tossed his cigarette on the tile floor, crushing it underneath his foot. "All right, well, we've got tons of empty offices upstairs if the two of you want... you know... alone time." He raised his eyebrows. They looked at him, Ella with a small trace of a blush on her cheeks. When they didn't give a verbal response, Louis shrugged. "Well, follow me."

He lead them to the elevator and pressed a button for the third floor. "I'll situate you two in the office across the hall from mine, where I'll be sleeping tonight. That way in case something happens I'm right there for help."

"Thank you," Ella told him, digging her hands in her pockets. "We really appreciate how kind you're being to us."

"Think nothing of it," Louis said, clearing his throat. Ella got the impression that he didn't like the sentimental aspect of how generous he was being to these two vagabonds.

When they got to the third floor, Louis started out of the elevator and lead the way down the hall. He stopped outside of an office and tapped the glass on the door. "This one's mine." He gestured toward the office across the way from it. "You two can take that one for the night. There's an emergency kit in one of the cabinets with blankets and water, and if you get hungry during the night the lounge is back toward the elevator, the second door on the left before you reach it. The power's still running so the snack machines still work."

"Thank you again," Ian told him.

Louis simply nodded and left, heading back to the elevator.

The office they were given for the night was spacious, around the size of Dr. Morning's at the hospital. Ian searched through the cabinets until he found the emergency kit Louis had told them about behind a box of files and folders. Opening the kit, he laid out a blanket on the floor to serve as a palette.

Ella laid down on the blanket and sighed, closing her eyes. Ian covered her with the second blanket from the kit and sat down beside her, drinking from a bottle of water.

"I want to find her, Ian," Ella said suddenly, opening her eyes and looking at him.

Ian sighed and reached out to grab her hand. "I know, Ella. I know. We'll find her."

"Your hand is freezing," Ella said, jerking her hand away from underneath his. He laughed and shrugged. "We're gonna wind up sick from this weather," she moaned, pulling at her damp sleeve.

"I think a little cold is the least of our problems, Ella," Ian pointed out, screwing the lid back on his water bottle. She mumbled slightly under her breath and yawned. "Getting sleepy?"

"A little, yeah. Kind of had a long day," she said, staring up at the ceiling. She couldn't remember ever feeling so exhausted in her life. Her chest felt shallow and her head was throbbing numbly, as if someone was knocking on it with a hammer. Her heartbeat felt as if it were muffled by a pillow. Or a very large fat woman sitting on it. Whichever.

"You should sleep," Ian said, crawling underneath the blanket beside her. They both laid there for a few moments, staring out into the quiet darkness, listening to the occasional police siren wailing in the distance.

In the still of the moment, Ella reached over and grabbed Ian's hand, lacing her fingers through it. She could almost hear the smile stretch across his face.

"Thank you for helping me find Jenna," she said softly, turning to look at his face in the darkness, silhouetted by the setting sun spilling in through the windows.

He turned his head to gaze back at her. "I'm glad I did," he replied, sending a small shiver down her back.

He leaned in slowly, almost cautiously, on the off-chance that she would pull back and be disgusted, before pressing his lips against hers. Her breath caught in her throat and her heart pounded against her ribcage. The chaos outside of the building seemed to melt away, and for the first time since Jenna's doctor appointment the week before, she was able to sleep peacefully.


	8. Rumors

Ella opened her eyes the next morning, squinting against the bright sunlight seeping through the window blinds. She lifted her head off of Ian's chest and gazed around; she'd slept so deeply that, for a moment, it felt as if the past couple of days had been a dream. She couldn't remember where she was or how she got there. When it finally hit her, she frowned, knitting her eyebrows together. I need to find Jenna. Today.

The clock on the desk read 7:34 in the morning. Ella rubbed her eyes and yawned. Her shirt was dry but her jeans were still damp. She wanted to change clothes but remembered that they'd left their bags in Ian's truck the day before.

"Good morning," she heard, and turned to see Ian stretching and blinking his eyes.

"Morning," she replied, smiling and bending down to give him a kiss. "Sleep well?"

"Surprisingly yes, considering the situation." He sat up and kicked the blanket off of them. "Come on, let's go check in with Louis and make sure nothing happened overnight that we need to be aware of before we take off. If you want we can stop in Trent for breakfast, since it sounds like none of the places around here will really be open to serve anything."

Ella nodded and stood up. They folded the blankets up and shoved them back into the emergency kit. They each took a bottle of water for the road before leaving the office. Louis's office across the hall was empty, so they went to the elevator and rode it down to the lobby.

Louis was sitting in one of the chairs, smoking another cigarette and watching the television in the corner for any news updates. A man and woman from one of the offices upstairs were sitting in two of the other chairs; the man was on his phone talking rapidly to whoever was on the other line, and the woman was skimming through a three-week old tabloid that had been sitting on the coffee table. None of them appeared to have gotten much sleep, if any at all.

When Louis spotted them walking in, he stood up and flicked his cigarette ashes on the floor. "How'd you sleep?"

"Pretty well, actually," Ella told him. "Did anything happen during the night?"

"That's what I'm looking for. So far no updates other than businesses across the city are closing." Louis stuck his cigarette between his lips so he could loosen his tie with free hands.

"Well, we're thinking of taking off early," Ian told him, shrugging his jacket on. "Ella's really worried about her sister and she wants to find her before things get too bad out there."

Louis nodded and took the cigarette back out of his mouth. "All right. Well if you ever need shelter or somewhere to crash for the night you're welcome here. But just so we know that you two aren't infected... knock on the door and when someone responds say... say 'good night moon'."

"Good night moon?" Ella repeated.

"I had to read it to my nephew the other day to get him to sleep," he replied, shrugging and taking a drag on the cigarette. "Only thing I could think of."

"Good night moon. Got it." Ian squeezed Ella's hand and said goodbye to Louis before heading out.

Just as they opened the front door, however, a sharp ringing sound pierced the air. Within seconds they heard multiple shrieks from nearby infected patients. With wide eyes they turned to look at Louis, whose blood seemed to drain from his face. "_Who the fuck opened an emergency exit?!_" he screamed, turning toward the hallways in the back.

A small man with thinning black hair and bottle cap glasses ran out, a frazzled, guilty expression on his face. "I'm sorry! It was an accident... I was trying to lean against the wall but I hit the door by accident... I really didn't mean to, honest, it was an acci-."

"_Shit!_" Louis cried, throwing his cigarette on the ground and putting his hands over his face. "Do you know what you did?! Now all those little sons of bitches are gonna be clawing their way in here until fucking midnight!"

As if on cue, three infected patients ran up to the glass doors and began banging on them with their fists, snarling and seething. Their inflamed eyes seemed to pierce through the dark glass, picking out which of those inside would be their breakfast for the day. As they watched, four more infected - both patients and civilians who had been attacked the day before - crowded around the door.

"How are we supposed to get to the truck?" Ella cried, holding her hands out toward the doors. "There's no way we can just waltz out there now!"

Louis sighed, glared at the balding man who was attempting to slink back into the hallway he'd come from, and went around the secretary's desk. He picked up his shotgun and cocked it, pointing it at the door. "You got a gun?" he asked the two of them, glancing over.

"I have a pistol," Ian replied, pulling it out of the small holster on his belt.

"Good. Use it." Louis pointed at his coworker in the lobby. "Frank, get the doors."

The man stood with his cell phone in his hand, dumbfounded. "Are you fucking crazy, Louis?! Those things will eat me alive!"

"Not if Betsy here has anything to say about it," Louis replied, tapping the shotgun with his index finger. "Open the damn door, and don't make me say it again."

Frank glanced at the woman who'd been reading tabloids and was now scurrying to the safety of the elevator, then at Ian and Ella, before slowly walking over to the door. Ian looked at Ella out of the corner of his eye. "Get behind me," he ordered, and she complied, closing her eyes and resting her forehead against his shoulderblade.

Frank took a deep breath and gripped the door handle. In one swift motion he opened the door, shielding himself with it as the seven infected poured into the room, their lips dripping with blood - both fresh and dried - and babbling in the language that only the virus understands.

Louis pulled the trigger on his shotgun, releasing a shell that penetrated the chest of an infected woman. She screamed and fell to the ground, writhing in pain as blood began oozing out of the wound at an alarming rate. With another shotgun shell to the forehead, she was silent in seconds.

An infected man was sprinting toward Ian, one hand outstretched in the hopes of grasping him. His nails were thick and yellow, with dirt and blood underneath the nails and covering the knuckles. Firing twice at the man's head, Ian successfully hit the man once in the cheek and once in the neck. The man stumbled and fell, landing only a few feet away from Ian and Ella. In a final attempt, he swiped at Ian's ankles, but missed. His hand fell to the ground as he wheezed, and blood spilled out onto the tile.

Ella could hear gunshots ringing in the air and the screeching of infected beings as the bullets met their hearts, brains, and other various organs. She could smell the salty, rusted smell of blood as it created a thick carpeting over different parts of the tile.

After a final roar from Louis's shotgun, everything in the lobby went quiet. Ella opened her eyes and peeked over Ian's shoulder, and felt her stomach churn at the sight.

The seven bodies of the infected men and women were strewn all about the floor. Each had a bed of blood to lay in, supplied by the numerous bulletwounds. The one nearest to Ian twitched, and Ella had to suppress a yelp for fear of straining the nerves of Louis and Ian anymore than they already were.

Louis sighed and lowered his shotgun. He ran a hand over his bald head, then slammed the shotgun on the secretary's desk. He sat down beside it, on top of the desk, and pulled out his carton of cigarettes as he stared at the floor, not making eye contact with anyone else in the room. Watching him, Ella had a growing suspicion that, for all his tough talk and walking around toting the shotgun like it was as common as a briefcase, Louis had never actually shot anyone before. Let alone a group of infected people.

Frank let the door close silently, staring at the macabre scene in front of him. The woman was nowhere to be found; apparently she'd managed to hide in the elevator after all, as she'd wished.

Ian turned around slowly. He shoved the pistol back into his holster before wrapping his arms around Ella. She could feel the slight tremble in his hands as he held her close.

"The path is clear," Louis said, his voice dead. He held his burning cigarette between his fingers, the smoke rising into the air. "You two can go ahead and get to your truck now."

Ian nodded and pulled away from Ella, keeping his arm around her waist. "We're sorry about this."

"Not your fault," Louis replied, scoffing. "It's that no good son a bitch from accounting who opened the emergency exit." His voice had a much harder tone than either of them had ever heard before. It was certainly from shooting and killing all those people. For, infected or not, they were still people.

They headed for the front doors and opened them cautiously, on the off-chance of hearing the ring of the emergency exit door again. When they didn't, they both breathed a sigh of relief and rushed to Ian's truck.

Once inside, Ian locked the doors and took off, headed for the border of Mercy and Trent.

Ella spotted very few people roaming the streets, and noticed an occasional infected person standing in the shadows or in the alleyways. But not once did she see them attack any of the citizens, which she was thankful for. She'd seen enough the past couple of days.

The woods creating a natural border between Mercy and Trent were quiet, tranquil, and Ella closed her eyes as they passed through them. It seemed like such a calming place to be at the moment, though she knew from experience by reading suspense novels and watching horror films that the woods were the worst place to consider safe in the midst of some sort of outbreak or murderous rampage

"Well it doesn't seem like the virus has hit Trent yet," she heard Ian mumble, and opened her eyes. In contrast with the almost ghost town appearance of Mercy, Trent was bustling just like usual. The sidewalks were crowded with people scurrying from one store to the next, babbling away on cell phones or to the people beside them, completely oblivious to the epidemic and the horrifying scenes just miles away.

"Any particular place you'd like to eat?" he asked her.

"I really don't care," she replied, looking down to notice the bloodstains on her tennis shoes from walking around the lobby floor after the shooting spree. Sighing, she kicked them off and began digging through her duffel bag to find the other shoes she'd packed.

Ian shrugged and pulled into a small pizza place. "Hope you don't mind that we're not going gourmet," he said, parking the truck and unlocking the doors, "but if your stomach is anything like mine right now you're not in the mood for tons of heavy food anyway."

Ella nodded, opening the passenger door and getting out. She breathed in the crisp air, feeling the chill even through her jacket. "I wish we could just stay here," she mumbled, wrapping her arms around herself. "I don't want to go back to that... that _hell_ over there."

"We don't have to," Ian responded, coming around the back of the truck and draping an arm across her shoulders. "We can stay here. I told you I live in Trent anyway."

"It would be great, Ian, but..." Ella laid her head on his shoulder, feeling exhausted already even though she'd only been awake around an hour and a half. "I have to find Jenna."

He nodded and patted her shoulder. "I know. And we will. Then maybe we can leave Mercy behind. But for now, let's get something in our stomachs."

They made their way inside the restaurant. Ella sat down in a small booth while Ian ordered at the counter. He returned with two sodas, setting one in front of Ella, before sliding into his side of the booth.

"I got a cheese pizza, is that all right?" he asked, sticking a straw in his drink.

"Yeah, that's fine," she replied, taking a sip. "What are we supposed to do now? I don't know of anywhere else she may have gone. Most of her time was spent either at home, at our parents' house, or out with Dillon whenever he'd get up off his ass and take her places."

Ian sighed, rubbing his forehead. "I honestly don't know, Ella. You know her better than I do. All I can think of is going back to the apartment and checking if she's returned."

Just then a waiter arrived with their order. He set the pizza down on the table and smiled at Ella, completely ignorning Ian. Ella brushed the smile off without returning it, and he stomped off, grumbling under his breath.

They each grabbed a slice of pizza and ate in silence. While chewing, Ella heard the table behind them gossiping and managed to catch the last bit of what a woman was saying. "- all going downhill over in Mercy. The cops don't have control of shit over there, even though they pretend like they do."

Ella put her slice of pizza down and strained to listen.

"It's really as hectic as they say it is?" she heard another woman say.

"If not worse," the first woman replied. "My brother-in-law lives there, works in some law firm near the hospital, and said it was near chaos after the news broke out of the infection. The police claim that they've got it all under control but they're nothing but a bunch of goddamn liars, no better than the ones anywhere else in the country. Randy gathered his family and hauled ass out of Mercy faster than you can say 'Sayonara,' and in my opinion that's what all of those sorry-ass people should do before the military gets a hold of 'em."

"The military?" a man asked. "What do you mean?"

The woman laughed. "Randy said a friend of his who works with the fire department told him that all of the authority in the town - the police, the fire department, anyone in city hall - is leaving the town in the next few days and letting the military do what they wish. More than likely they'll blockade the streets leading out into other towns, tell people it's for quarantine, not let anyone in. Then when the people in Mercy start to get hostile and try to sneak out, the military will give 'em a bullet right between the eyes. That's one hell of a cure for any infection I've ever heard of, but I can almost guarantee that it'll happen. They'll do the same with anyone trying to get in, too. Eventually that place will be nothing but a ghost town, because everyone inside will either get bitten by someone infected or shot by someone who's not."

Ella felt her hands shaking on the table. Ian reached across and grabbed one, concerned. "What's the problem?"

She shook her head and pressed a finger to her mouth, listening to what else the group behind them had to say.

"No one in any other town is supposed to know anything about what's going on there," the woman continued, and Ella could hear ice clinking around inside a glass.

"Why not?" the other woman asked.

"They don't want people hearing about it and either raising hell and overreacting, claiming it's some new swine flu, or trying to do something to rescue people they know in Mercy." The sound of a glass slamming against the tabletop could be heard. "They've known about this infection for God knows how long... a month or two, at least. And they're just now getting around to telling people in the same damn town about it. Who's to say they won't keep it a secret from people outside?"

"Oh dear God," Ella whispered, covering her eyes with her hands.

"What? Ella, what's wrong?" Ian asked.

She leaned forward in the seat, resting her elbows on the tabletop and staring down at the pizza in front of her. "The lady behind us. She said the military's about to come into Mercy and start blockading the streets and shooting anyone who tries to leave, and they're not gonna tell anyone at all about what's going on."

"She can't know that," Ian assured her, knitting his brows. "She's just gossiping for the sake of gossip, to entertain her friends. Don't listen to her Ella."

"What if she's right?" Ella screeched. "What if they're going to start shooting people, or letting the infected ones get to us?"

Ian shook his head and slid out of his side of the booth. He went over to her side and sat down beside her, wrapping his arms around her waist. "She's running her mouth. Ignore her. She's just spouting off what she sees in zombie movies; that doesn't mean she's right or that any of that is going to happen."

Ella took a deep breath, though her hands were still shaking, and rested her head against Ian's shoulder. "But -."

"No buts." Ian brushed her hair out of her face. "You're just getting worked up over nothing, it's the stress of everything that's happened over the past couple of days."

Sighing, she closing her eyes and squeezed the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger. "I guess you're right."

"Come on, let's finishing eating and then we'll drive around the countryside for a bit so you can relax before we head back to Mercy."

Nodding, she picked up her pizza and continued eating, all the while preoccupied about what she'd heard.


	9. Francis

"Can we stop here please? I'm feeling nauseous... I think it was that pizza."

"It's a _motorcycle bar_, Ella, I'm not stopping there!"

"Ian, I'm gonna throw up!"

Ian sighed and pulled into the dusty parking lot of the motorcycle bar Ella had pointed out. They'd driven around the countryside on the outskirts of Trent for a few hours, listening to the radio and talking about random things, in an effort to calm Ella down.

She was now bolting out of the truck and into the small bar. Ian killed the engine and followed her inside.

The bar was just as seedy as he'd pictured it; the lighting was dim from grimy light covers, and the air was filled with cigar and cigarette smoke. Posters of half-naked (and he could've sworn there were a couple fully-nude) women lined the walls, occasionally interrupted by dart boards. Two pool tables were near the door, with flickering lights hanging over them, casting eerie shadows onto the floor. Much to his relief, however, there was only one man in the bar besides him and the bartender, a balding man with an auburn beard and a leather vest hunched over a bottle of whiskey at the bar.

The bartender behind the bar stared curiously at Ian, then at the women's bathroom door, which was swinging shut. "That girl belong to you?" he asked, jerking his thumb in the direction. "The ginger?"

"Yes," Ian replied tartly, sitting on a bar stool.

"Want anythin' to drink?" the bartender asked Ian, gesturing at all the bottles lining the shelves behind him. "I've got it all, jus' name it."

As tempted as he was to say no - he couldn't help but worry about the cleanliness of the beer bottles and glasses, judging by the appearance of the place - but he was thirsty. It had been a while since he'd had the soda at the restaurant. "I guess I'll have a beer."

The bartender nodded, and pulled out a mug to begin washing and filling it. "So what's wrong with your girl?" he asked, looking at the women's restroom again.

"Nauseous," Ian replied, staring at the television above the bar. It looked like a football game, but the channel was so grainy it was hard to tell.

"Ahhh... got a bun in the oven, eh?" he asked, snickering and elbowing the man at the bar. "C'mon Francis, you ain't smiled once since you got here."

"I don't feel like smiling, now stop fucking bothering me," the man replied in a gruff voice. The bartender shrugged and began filling up Ian's mug.

"She's not pregnant, she's just feeling ill," Ian informed the bartender. "I guess the lunch we had earlier didn't agree with her."

The bartender smirked and slid the beer to Ian. "Whatever you say. Where you from anyway?"

"Mercy."

The man at the bar - Francis - made a small sound, and turned to face Ian. "_Mercy_?"

Ian froze. _Please God, I don't want to die by this man_. "Yes. Well, no, actually, not really. I live here. In Trent. But she lives in Mercy. And I'm living there temporarily right now looking after my father's business while he's away."

Francis grunted. "I live in Mercy. That place is going to hell in a handbasket right now with that incident at the hospital."

Ian felt his muscles relax slightly. "I know. That's why we came out here, to get away from it for a little while."

"I got my ass out of there as soon as I could. You should do the same," Francis advised. "Don't trust a damn soul because you never know if and when they'll turn and you'll have to off 'em."

The bartender eyed Francis warily. "What the hell happened to you, Francis? You disappear for a week and then come back depressed as fuck."

Francis grunted and pushed his stool back from the bar. He pulled out a carton of cigarettes and stuck one in his mouth. "I'm going out front for a smoke," he mumbled in reply to the bartender's question, and stomped out of the bar.

Ian watched him, then sighed and took a drink of his beer. It was flat and watery, just as he'd expected.

Ella stumbled out of the bathroom right then, holding her stomach with one arm and groaning under her breath. "We're not eating at that place anymore," she told Ian, sitting down on the barstool next to him.

"Feeling better?" he asked, kissing her on the forehead.

"Yeah. I think I'm ready to go back to Mercy and look for Jenna," she said, standing back up and tugging on his sleeve to hurry him. He smiled and laid money on the counter to pay for the one sip of his beer he'd taken. The bartender nodded at him and swiped the money into his pocket almost as soon as Ian had laid it down.

They walked out of the bar hand in hand. Francis was standing over by a motorcycle - his own, Ian presumed - with the cigarette dangling from his fingertips at his side, the glowing ashes falling onto the ground. He looked over at the couple and narrowed his eyes slightly before raising the cigarette to his lips for a long, slow drag.

"Go ahead and get in the truck, Ella, I'll be there in a second," Ian said. Ella shrugged and headed for the truck, while Ian took a few steps in Francis's direction. "What kind of a bike is this?"

"Harley. Be careful with that girl," Francis told him in reply, draping a hand on the seat of the motorcycle.

"What do you mean?"

Francis sighed and combed his beard with his cigarette-free hand. "I had a girl. Married for around three years. Then she comes to me about a month ago and tells me she's pregnant."

"Congratulations," Ian told him, then cringed when the biker glared at him.

"The kid wasn't mine," he snapped. "We hadn't done anything in months. Pissed me off beyond belief. But I said I'd help take care of her until the baby came and she could find a place. Then she got sick about two or three weeks into the pregnancy."

Ian's ears perked up. _This sounds familiar_, he thought, glancing at the truck, where Ella was watching them through the window with a confused expression on her face.

"One night about a week ago I came home from the bar and found her on the bed, holding her stomach and screaming and crying, babbling some stupid nonsense I didn't understand. When I saw her bleeding I thought she'd lost the baby. We didn't have the money to take her to some hospital or anything so I took care of her at home. She stayed in bed and I'd give her water and pills to help with the pain and stuff. Eventually the bleeding stopped but she kept babbling and crying."

"Then what?" Ian asked, barely able to breathe.

"Woke up one night and she wasn't in the bed. Went looking for her and found her sitting out in the backyard hunched over, grabbing her stomach and bawling like she had been for the past few days. I called her name but she never said anything back or looked at me or anything. Just kept rocking back and forth and crying. I went over to her and finally when she looked at me, her eyes were red. She started growling so I backed up, and then she like... hell if I know, it was some sort of a shriek or something... and started running at me. I tried outrunning her but she was so damn fast. So I did the only thing I could think of... grab my shotgun."

At this, Francis paused and closed his eyes. "From rumors I've heard around town and stuff, the baby she'd had in her was infected and made her that way. But God only knows if that was true. I left Mercy as soon as possible after things went down, after I had to... you know."

Ian swallowed the lump in his throat. It was exactly like what Ella had told him about her sister. His mind was running at a million miles a second.

"I need to get back to Mercy," he said suddenly, nodded at Francis, and turned on his heel to head back to the truck.

"I wouldn't if I was you," Francis called.

Ignoring him, Ian got into the truck and turned the key in the ignition. Ella watched him while the truck roared to life. "What was that about?"

"Some biker who was babbling about his bike," Ian told her, hiding his face slightly so she wouldn't catch that he was lying to her. He didn't want her to worry and think of what would be going on with her sister by now, or that there was no hope for her. Though honestly, he didn't think there was any left.

They headed back to Mercy, Ian's mind still wrapped around what Francis had told him. Ella's sister would be around the stage of sitting around crying by now, judging by the time frame Francis had given, if it was correct. _Was_ there any hope of returning her to her normal state now?

"What's going on?" he heard, and snapped out of his reverie. They were close to the wooded border of Mercy and Trent, but the road was blocked by a large olive-green Hummer. Members of the military were setting up road blocks and directing traffic in a different direction.

"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to turn around," a man in a camoflague jumpsuit said, approaching the truck.

"Why are you doing this, what's going on?" Ella asked, her eyes wide with a frenzy as she looked at the blockades. She remembered what the woman from the restaurant had said earlier that day. _"They'll blockade the streets leading out into other towns, tell people it's for quarantine, not let anyone in. Then when the people in Mercy start to get hostile and try to sneak out, the military will give 'em a bullet right between the eyes... They'll do the same with anyone trying to get in, too. Eventually that place will be nothing but a ghost town, because everyone inside will either get bitten by someone infected or shot by someone who's not."_

"Sir we live in Mercy, we need to get home," Ian told the soldier calmly, reaching over to squeeze Ella's hand in a comforting gesture. An elderly man in a Green Beret hat and camoflague pants with a cigarette dangling from his mouth was arguing with another soldier in the background.

"I fought for your fucking freedom and you won't let me go to my own goddamn house?!" he cried. "Whatever happened to 'respect your elders,' or even 'hey this guy got a bullet to his goddamn arm so maybe we'll let him go feed his fucking dogs!'?"

"I'm sorry but I can't let you in," the first soldier told Ian, shaking his head. He genuinely seemed sorry, at least. "The town is being put under quarantine for the next few days. We're sealing off all streets that lead to outside towns. We should be able to take the blockades down by Sunday. We just need to make sure no more infected people are running around and that none of them spread anywhere else, I'm sure you understand."

Ian nodded and made a U-turn, heading back into the center of Trent. Ella stared out of the window, her heart beating rapidly. "We're never gonna get back into Mercy, Ian. You heard what that woman said today at the pizza place. They'll shoot anyone who tries to get in and anyone who's already in. They're not quarantining for just the infection; they're trying to get rid of everyone who's in Mercy, healthy or not."

"Ella, if the food at that pizza place wouldn't agree with you, why would you agree with the people there?" Ian asked. She merely stared at him in return, not even cracking a smile. "Sorry, bad time for humor."

"I need to find Jenna!"

"I know." He sighed.

"The woods," she said suddenly.

"What?"

"They were only blockading the streets, you heard him!" Ella leaned forward in her seat, against the restraint of the seatbelt. "We can get in through the woods, across the creek!"

"Are you nuts?!" Ian slammed on the breaks, the tires squealing and shrieking in protest. He thanked God that no one was around. "What if those soldiers find us? They had guns, Ella, you saw them. Whether they're planning on using them on the people already in Mercy is a wild guess, but I have no doubt they'd use them on us if we blatantly went against their orders. And what if we run into an infected person, or a group of them? I can't bring my truck in through the woods, we'd have to go on foot, and with no sturdy truck to shield us and a little pansyass pistol for a weapon we're not that protected!"

Ella looked at him, her gaze firm, her determination shining behind her eyes, so light a shade of ice blue they were almost white. "I'm going to find my sister, Ian, and if I have to trek through those woods by myself to get to her then I will." She opened the passenger door of the truck as a form of punctuation, a final mark on her threat, to show that she wasn't bluffing.

"Ella, you can't be serious."

"But I am, Ian. Jenna's my sister, my best friend. I'm not going to leave her alone. Even if it's too late... I want to know. I can't go on just wondering, completely oblivious to what happened to her."

There was a moment's pause, the air completely still around them. Nighttime was closing in fast, like tar being poured over the city.

"Close the door, Ella."

"No, Ian. I'm going to find her. I'm going to -."

"No, I mean, close it so I can find a more obscure place to park," he told her, defeated. She blinked at him. "We'll go through the woods and find her. But if we don't find her by this time tomorrow we're coming back to the truck and going to my house here in Trent. Understand?"

Ella nodded, a smile breaking across her face. Despite her happiness at having won the battle and her newfound determination to find her sister, stronger than ever before, Ian could sense her tension, how scared she was at what they were about to do. He didn't blame her; hell, even he was scared.

She closed the door and he began searching for side roads in the general area of the woods. He wanted to find one in a darker part of town, where the truck wouldn't be easily visible, yet at the same time find a stretch of woods that was thin so they wouldn't be traipsing around the trees and the shadows in the dark for too long.

Finally he found the perfect place: a small back road behind a neighborhood that ended right beside the woods. Through the patch of trees he could see a faint light, and if he squinted he could make out the outline of a neon sign on top of a diner in Mercy. They'd have to walk maybe two miles, two and a half at most, but it was nothing compared to some of the dense, eight-mile stretches of woods they'd passed on their way to Trent.

Ian got out of the truck, assuring himself that his pistol was still in the holster on his belt, and took a deep breath. The crisp night air was icy, stinging his lungs as it filled them, waking him up from any little bit of exhaustion that might have entered his mind. He couldn't let fatigue get him now. He had to do this, for Ella.

Ella had gotten out of the passenger side of the truck and was heading over to his side. She was hugging herself, staring at the trees with an odd mixture of fear and bravery flooding her eyes.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Ian asked, wrapping his arms around her in a quick hug.

"No," she replied. When he pulled back in surprise, she sighed. "I don't _want_ to do this. But I_ need_ to. For Jenna."

He nodded, understanding. "Keep hold of me the whole time we're in there. I don't care how; you can grab my arm, my wrist, my hand, my jacket, anything. Just don't let go of me."

She nodded, and on cue grabbed his hand, lacing her fingers tightly through his.

In sync, they both took a deep breath and took the first step into the woods.


	10. Welcome to Mercy

"Ian, I heard something!"

"What? Where?"

Ian turned around, spinning in slow circles with his pistol out at arms-length. The moonlight filtering through the treetops provided only enough light to turn the air around them a silvery fog, while the remaining leaves on nearby bushes appeared a bone-white. Each shadow surrounding them seemed more pronounced and threatening, as if they stretched out in an attempt to wrap skeletal hands around his calves and drag him into oblivion.

"Over by those trees!" Ella hissed, cowering behind his shoulder.

Ian took a step closer to where she indicated, holding the pistol steady in his grasp, his eyes squinted... that's what the heroes in the movies always did to help them see, right?

A few moments later, he sighed and dropped his arms. "Ella, look." Ella peeked over his shoulder to see a rather fat squirrel jump from one low tree branch to another, then scurry up the bark to wherever he had hidden his stash of acorns. "It's just a squirrel getting ready for winter."

Ella pouted. "Well, how was I supposed to know that? I was worried it was an infected person."

They'd been walking for fifteen minutes now, and had made it just past halfway through the woods. Normally, on a flat surface on a sunny day, a two-and-a-half mile walk would be a piece of cake for both of them. However, they had to consider the darkness that, paired with the fallen tree branches and raised roots hiding under piles of fallen leaves, threatened to trip them with every step. Gnarled bushes scraped at their legs and arms, leaving long scratches that stung each time the wind picked up, blowing against their skin. Each sound that punctured the air made them freeze; luckily they hadn't run into a single infected patient.

Ella sighed and ran her hands through her hair, tousled and full of twigs and leaves from low-hanging branches. "This is bullshit," she muttered.

"I know, but we have to keep going," Ian insisted, trying to keep his voice at a soft tone. "We're almost to Mercy." When she didn't respond, he tried again. "We're almost to Jenna."

Ella was quiet for a moment. "Fine," she finally said, and began walking, dry leaves crunching under each footfall.

Another ten minutes followed before they reached the edge of the woods that faced Mercy. Standing in the shadows of a cluster of tall trees, they found themselves emerging behind a 7-Eleven. The power was still on, and the familiar green neon sign glowed like a star against the night sky. The doors were locked and barred shut, though Ella swore she saw someone inside. If she had to guess, the employee who had been inside at the time of the most recent news bulletins had barricaded themself inside to wait out the infection.

"Do you see any patients?" Ian asked, gazing around. The streets seemed empty, and with the exception of lights shining through windows, Mercy seemed almost abandoned.

"Nope," Ella replied. "But that doesn't mean they're not out there."

Ian nodded. "Where do we go next? I'd suggest we try that 7-Eleven but it seems that whoever's inside won't open the door for us no matter what we say."

They scanned the town for signs of friendly territory. "I don't see anywhere that seems completely safe," Ella whispered, keeping her eyes glued to the buildings around them.

"Because nowhere around here is completely safe," a voice rang out from behind them.

They both froze where they stood. "Put your hands up or I'll shoot," the voice added. Shakily, both Ian and Ella raised their hands toward the sky, their heart pounding in their ears.

The elderly man in the green beret who had been arguing with the miliary members at the barricade earlier that day circled around them, holding two pistols pointed in their direction. A lit cigarette dangled from his lips, the ashes falling in glowing red embers on his combat boots.

"What have we got here?" he smirked, the cigarette bobbing each time his lips moved. "A couple of infected people trying to escape the military?"

"No sir, I promise we're not infected," Ella whimpered, a sob clawing at her throat. She was too frightened to let any tears fall, however. "We're not trying to leave Mercy, we're trying to get in."

"You _promise_?" he repeated, and laughed. "Promises don't mean shit right now sweetheart." The man pointed one pistol at each of them. "If the two of you ain't infected, then what the hell are you doing here?"

"You're not infected and yet you're here," Ian snapped, then instantly regretted it. The man stared at him, then chuckled and lowered his guns a few inches.

"You got balls, kid. How'd you know I'm not infected?"

"We saw you arguing with the army men, trying to get through the barricade," Ian told him, slowly dropping his hands back to his sides. "You said you needed to get home to Mercy, but they wouldn't let you through."

"Assholes," the man sputtered, lowering his guns back to his sides. "Figured I could find my way back home through the woods. Seems like I wasn't the only one who had the idea," he added, gesturing at the young couple in front of him. "I've been walking around for two hours. Kept having to change my route because of the military guys heading this way, and a few infected patients have found their way into the woods."

"The military is in the woods?" Ella repeated, gripping Ian's arm. "If they find us, they'll shoot us! We have to find somewhere in town to hide out before they get closer." She bit her thumbnail, worried.

Ian's gaze swept over the town in front of them. A lone infected patient with blood staining his torn hospital gown stumbled out of a small office building on a nearby intersection, huffing under his breath. A dog barked somewhere in an apartment building further up the road, causing the infected man to hiss and sprint out of sight.

"I sure hope you got some kinda weapon, son," the elderly man told Ian, tossing his cigarette in the dirt. He made no attempt to stamp it out; no one would care if Mercy burned to the ground from a small forest fire anyway, at this point.

Ian pushed his shirt aside so the man could see his pistol.

"Good. Now, make a run for that Dunkin' Donuts across the street," the man told him, pointing in the direction. "You stay in front, and the little lady here," - he nodded at Ella - "stays right behind you. I'll follow; I'll be able to shoot more with both my guns, and from where I am I can cover the two of you."

"How do we know that Dunkin' Donuts is clear of infected patients?" Ella asked him, her eyes not leaving the horizon over which the infected man had disappeared in search of his furry dinner.

"We don't." He checked the ammo in his pistols before standing straight. "We'll just have to take the chance. And get you a gun as soon as possible," he added. Ella nodded. "On my count... one... two... _three_!"

Ian took off running across the street, his pistol in his hands and Ella close at his heels. The man in the green beret followed, keeping his eyes open for any sign of infected patients headed their direction. One jumped through a broken flower shop window, blood dripping from his lips like saliva. Before he had a chance to scream and alert his friends that he had found food, both Ian and the elderly man pulled the trigger on their pistols. The infected patient fell to the pavement, skidding a few feet on his face and pulling off the purplish-grey skin from his cheek.

When they had reached the donut shop, Ian waited for everyone to get inside before closing and locking the door. He pulled the blinds down over the windows before flicking on the nearby light switch.

"Is anyone here?" the elderly man called, his voice gruff from years of chain smoking. His fingers tightened on the handle of his pistols. When no one responded, his grip loosened enough for him to place his guns on a table and pull out another cigarette and a lighter.

Ian and Ella sat close together in a booth, Ian's pistol in front of them. Their eyes jumped from watching the man light his cigarette to the storeroom door in the back of the room, scared that at any moment a patient would burst through the door.

"Quit worrying, we'll be fine here," the man told them, sitting on the table beside his pistols. "Name's Bill, by the way. What are the two of you even doing trying to get back into Mercy?"

"My sister went missing," Ella told him, leaning into the soft pink leather seat. "Just before the ordeal at the hospital, she disappeared from her apartment, where I was staying. She's... she's a little mentally ill," she added, remembering that this was the story they had told Louis at Dillon's building. _"He wouldn't have helped us if he knew she was infected. He probably would've laughed in our faces and told us to fuck off."_

_Seems like it would describe Bill, too_, she thought.

"We just wanna try and find her before an infected patient does," Ian said, lacing his fingers through Ella's. "After that, we're leaving Mercy behind for good."

Bill nodded, taking a long drag on his cigarette. "What if you find her after she's run into one of those things?" he asked nonchalantly, blowing smoke rings in the air.

Ella's grip tightened. She didn't want to think of that possibility, even though she knew there was a high chance that it would happen. "Then we'll shoot her to put her out of her misery," she blurted.

Her eyes widened when she realized what had come out of her mouth. Had she meant it? In all honesty, Ella hadn't really given it a thought. In her mind, they always found Jenna, recovered from her illness - which would turn out to be just a sickness from a miscarriage - and safe from harm. Then the three of them would leave Mercy and start a new life in Trent, or perhaps even somewhere farther away where they could forget the hell they'd endured. There was never any alternative.

But the more she thought about it now, the more she questioned what she would do. _Would _she be able to shoot her sister, to kill her, if she had become infected? Or would she have to get Ian to shoot her if she didn't have the stomach for it? What if she couldn't let anybody shoot her... would she let Jenna attack her just to save herself the trouble of having to shoot her? She grew silent with her ponderings.

Bill and Ian both watched her for a few moments in the awkward silence. Finally, Bill cleared his throat, pulling her out of her musings. "Well, I'm gonna go check the storeroom, make sure that any back entrances are locked or blocked. You kids find some food up here."

"Do you need help back there?" Ian asked, sliding out of the booth and standing up.

Bill shook his head and pulled the cigarette out of his mouth long enough to flick the ashes on the white tiled floor. "Stay here with your gal," he said, sticking the cigarette back in his mouth. "See if any of these refrigerator behind the counter have anything of substance in them." With that, he strolled through the storeroom door and into the darkness beyond.


	11. MISS

"He's still back there."

Ella sat on a tall stool at the counter of the abandoned Dunkin' Donuts, fidgeting with the straw sticking out of the tiny carton of milk in front of her. Ian stood behind the counter, leaning against it and nursing a bottle of water. They both nervously stole glances at the storeroom door.

It had been twenty minutes since the darkness of the storeroom engulfed Bill. In that time, Ian had uncovered a refrigerator full of drinks - water, orange juice, milk, soda, and even energy drinks and bottled smoothies - and Ella had found an oven with a few doughnuts, biscuits, and pigs in a blanket still inside. They expected Bill to emerge from the storeroom any minute now, but so far there was no sign of him.

"I'm sure he's fine," Ian replied to Ella's quiet statement, though he didn't seem to confident.

"You don't think one of those patients was back there?"

"I'm sure he's fine," he repeated.

They both fell into silence, switching from their drinks to gazing at the storeroom door, scenarios of the worst kind flitting through their heads.

As they stared at it, the door suddenly opened, banging against the back wall with a loud _THUD!_ Ella jumped out of her seat, nearly falling to the floor. Ian straightened up and whipped his pistol out of its holster all in a matter of half a second.

"Relax, it's just me," Bill said, trudging through the door. One pistol was hidden in its holster, and the other hung slack from his left hand. He closed the door behind him and settled on a stool two down from where Ella sat.

Ian slid his pistol back in his holster and took a deep breath, while Ella held her hand over her heart and rested her head on the cool countertop. "You scared the shit out of us," she said, looking up at Bill. He shrugged and jammed his cigarette in the dirty ashtray beside the condiment holder on the counter. Smoke wafted into the air.

"Did you find anything?" Ian asked, turning to face Bill.

"Two back doors," he replied, "but they're both locked. Deadbolted, too. And there was food, but it was all frozen or some type of ingredient." He pulled another cigarette from the pack in his shirt pocket, coughing. "You kids find anything out here?"

"A ton of drinks and a few breakfast foods left over in the oven," Ella told him, tossing her empty milk carton in the trashcan.

Bill exhaled smoke and scratched his scruffy silver beard. "That ain't gonna last too long."

"That's okay, we weren't planning on staying long anyway," Ian said, shaking his head. "Just tonight, maybe tomorrow night. Then we'll be heading back out on the streets to find Ella's sister, Jenna."

Smirking, Bill nodded. "It's incredible that you think you'll find someone out there, but the determination is admirable. A little stupid, but admirable."

Ella blinked. "Well... thank you. I think.

You remind me of my daughter.

You have a daughter?

Bill nodded again. Yeah. She lives in Jersey now. Has two boys under the age of six. He thought a moment. I ve been thinking that when this mess is over with I ll go visit them.

Ella smiled softly. Bill reminded her of her own father. Then her heart sank; her father would be coming back in two weeks. His wife was dead and his oldest daughter was... missing. Maybe dead, too. _Will I still be in Mercy in two weeks?_ she thought. _Will there even _be_ a Mercy in two weeks?_

_There has to be. Everything will be back to normal before this week is up._

That s what Ella chanted in her head over and over again until she went to sleep.

_Ella was running through a dark forest, with nothing to defend herself but a small pistol. Her heart was pounding underneath her dirty, disheveled shirt. Her legs ached, but she continued running, alone._

_"We're over here!" someone cried, and she took a step in that direction._

_And then she heard it. Heavy breathing, followed by a snarling sound, coming out of the bushes to her right._

_Frightened, she froze. She moved to raise her pistol when all of a sudden someone charged out of the bushes. They smacked the pistol from her hand and knocked her down, pinning her to the ground. She tried to kick and push them off of her._

_It was a woman, yet at the same time it wasn't. Through his snarling lips she could see her teeth were coated with blood. Her skin was the color of cigarette ashes, and dark purple circles lined her eyes. Her eyes were what really drew her attention; they glowed an intense red, as if on fire. They matched her short hair, framing her face in messy, unkempt tendrils._

_The woman's face twisted into a grotesque, bloody grin and began to whisper: Rutilus Oculus Aegrotatio. The Red-Eye Illness._

_The Rage Virus._

"Are you kids sure you don't wanna stay here a little longer?" Bill asked, swirling the last few sips of a Monster energy drink in its bottle.

Ella shook her head, the circles under her eyes almost black. "We really need to try and find Jenna. And the best time to go is during the day." Maybe it was all the monster/zombie/horror movies she d watched over the years and the theory that nothing bad can happen in broad daylight, but she felt safer and more comfortable walking around Mercy when the sun was out.

They had stayed two nights at the Dunkin' Donuts, sleeping in the benches of booths or on the floor with aprons from the storeroom balled up into makeshift pillows. The morning before, backs aching and limbs stiff, they ate a breakfast consisting of a bottle of soda and a doughnut or a biscuit. The afternoon consisted of traipsing through the storeroom in a weak attempt to find Ella a weapon. The best they could find was a small stash of pepper spray cans and a pocket knife. She'd stuck the knife and one bottle of the mace in her pockets.

Now, Ella and Ian stood in front of the doorway, about to leave for the day, while Bill sat on top of one of the booths, a cigarette in one hand and his almost-empty Monster can in the other.

The clock on the wall of the restaurant read 6:49am, the sun a pale pink and yellow creeping over the horizon, bringing with it the morning chill. Ella yawned and shivered. She'd had a new variation of her nightmare both nights they were here, and had woken up in a cold sweat both times. The man-turned-woman now had short red hair that looked so familiar, it made Ella uncomfortable.

"And you're sure you don't want me there to help in case something comes along?" Bill pressed, hopping off of the table.

"We wouldn't want to burden you," Ian told him. He patted his hip, reassuring himself that his holster and pistol were where they belonged.

Bill nodded, solemnly. "Okay, if you're sure. I'm just running to my house and then I'll be sneaking back through those woods to Trent. Hope to see you two on the other side."

They both smiled. Ian pushed open the glass door, looking down both sides of the street for any sign of patients. With the exception of the one he and Bill had killed the night before, laying facedown on the pavement with the back of his hospital gown open, all he found were a few blood splatters on the road.

"Come on, let's go," he said, grabbing Ella's wrist and pulling her along behind him. They had agreed the night before to start the search with the areas surrounding the apartment complex, just in case Jenna had been hiding somewhere near there since her disappearance a week ago.

_Has it really been a week?_ Ella thought to herself as they headed toward the center of town, keeping on the sidewalk. Each time they passed a building with an open door or window, they side-stepped it; they didn't want an infected patient to jump out and attack them.

It seemed like it had been so much longer than that. When she thought back on everything that had happened since Jenna went missing - the power outage at the hospital that caused all the patients to escape, the stampede of patients coming into the office building where Dillon had worked and where they had met Louis, the military blockades quarantining the town, and, worst of all, the incident with her mother - it felt like it had been weeks or months, not just one week. Yet at the same time, it seemed like it had only happened the day before.

They approached Tank Burger, a small diner that was famous around Mercy for its mascot. In high school, Neil Lucas, a year ahead of Ella, had worked as a comic illustrator for the school newspaper. After the football team suffered a humiliating defeat in the state playoffs, Neil had drawn a caricature of how he saw the jocks: overly-muscular, steroid-pumped arms and torso, small legs, and a head the size of a grapefruit with bulging veins and eyes, the tongue hanging lazily out of the corner of the mouth. The creature wore a football jersey with _The Tank_ on the front, the nickname of the team's quarterback, and was chewing on the corner of a textbook, a clueless expression on its face. The caption had read _"Good try, Mercy football team! Better luck next year... God knows you'll all be here for years to come!"_ The school, heavily supported by the families of the football team, kicked Neil off of the newspaper team and even threatened suspension. The drawing had become so popular among students, however, that a year later when his mother announced she was buying and renovating the old diner in town to bring it under her own management, the Lucas family decided to name the restaurant after Neil's drawing and use it as their logo. It infuriated the school board and the family of football team members so much that they attempted to boycott the restaurant - even petitioning to have it shut down at one point - but the caricature had made the diner the local hangout around town, bringing in such good revenue for Mercy that the town council refused to close it. Ella smiled, thinking about the fiasco the sketch had caused for an entire month during her sophomore year.

Suddenly, a commotion from inside the diner made them stop in their tracks. Ian held his hand out, signaling for Ella to stay behind him. He leaned over and peeked inside one of the broken windows.

The chairs and tables had been knocked onto their sides, and most were in piles against the walls. Napkin dispensers, condiment bottles, and salt and pepper shakers were scattered everywhere, along with pots and skillets that belonged back in the kitchen. An infected patient was slumped against one wall, bleeding profusely from the chest, wheezing out its last breaths. Two others were dead, laying against each other in the back corner. Though Ian could see that one wasn't a patient: it was a woman in a blue turtleneck and black skirt, but the blood dripping from her mouth and the red glow in her eyes - which were permanently stuck open, staring at the ceiling - were a dead giveaway that she had been infected. Blood - presumably from the two dead infected and the one almost-dead one - was splattered against both walls and on the counters.

In the center of the trashed diner stood two men. One wore jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt, the sleeves rolled up to the elbows of his muscular, hairy arms. His baseball cap was slightly askew and his hiking boots were stained with blood. The other man was dressed in black slacks and a white button-down shirt, the cuffs unbuttoned and hanging around his wrists. An orange tie stuck out from the pocket of his pants. Both men were pointing guns - a shotgun for the man in the baseball cap, and a hunting rifle for the man with the orange tie - down at a woman at their feet. She wasn't an infected patient, but she was obviously infected; blood stained her yellow blouse and she continued to snap at the ankle of the man in the baseball cap, who held his foot at her throat.

"You lousy piece of shit," Baseball Cap muttered, taking aim at the woman's head. Orange Tie behind him gripped the butt of his rifle, watching.

The infected woman screeched and flailed her arms, trying to escape. Baseball Cap smirked and, with one fluid pull of the trigger, sent a shotgun shell into her brain. Blood spilled onto the tile underneath the woman, who was no longer moving.

Ian held his breath. Ella, hearing the shot, was gripping his arm so hard that her nails dug into his skin. "What's going on?" she whispered so quietly she may as well have been mouthing it. Ian shook his head in response.

Orange Tie glanced up right then, catching sight of movement in the corner of the window. Ian swore under his breath and ducked down, pulling Ella with him.

"What's wrong?" she asked, her eyes wide. "What did you see in there?"

"These two men are in there with guns. They saw me, and they didn't look like the friendly kind." Ian looked around, trying to find somewhere they could run to and hide. The first thing he saw was a dumpster across the parking lot, with a small crawl space between it and a brick fence behind it. "Come on, we have to make a run for it!"

"Are you crazy?" Ella hissed, but he ignored her and took off running, dragging her behind him. They were both breathing heavily, their hearts pounding against their ribcages, their feet sore and aching in their shoes as they pounded against the pavement. They heard one of the men call out from behind them, but kept running for the dumpster.

Sliding in behind it, they both began panting. Ella slammed her eyes shut and held her hands over her face. "They saw us come back here," she whispered. Ian didn't respond; he simply raised his head and looked up at the sky, sweat glistening on his temple.

A shot rang out in the air, and Ella gripped tightly onto Ian's hand. It sounded close to the dumpster. "Damn it, fucking patients," they heard.

"We know you're back there!" another voice called. Ella dug her nails into the palm of Ian's hand. "Come on out! We're not gonna hurt you, we promise!"

"I don't see why we can't just go back there and get 'em," the first voice mumbled, and then they could hear what sounded like a bag of sand being dragged across the pavement.

"I'm not planning on scaring them into coming with us," replied the other voice, annoyed. "Ignore him," it called out. "Please. I promise we're not going to hurt you. We're trying to help you."

"As long as you're not infected!" cried the other voice, laughing. It sounded farther away.

Ian leaned on his left side and glanced around the corner of the dumpster. Orange Tie was standing approximately five foot away from the front of the dumpster, his rifle nowhere to be seen. Baseball Cap was dragging a dead patient towards another dumpster closer to the diner, a trail of blood following.

"My name is Arnold Whitsell," Orange Tie said, spying Ian around the side of the dumpster. "And that's Gabriel Fernandez. We're part of the Mercy Infection Survival Squad."

"The what?" Ian asked, standing up but staying behind the dumpster. Ella stood up with him but stayed behind him, peeking around his arm at the men.

"It's a makeshift form of authority that the people in Mercy created after the infection broke out and the police and city council abandoned ship," Gabriel said, coming back from the other dumpster where he'd thrown the dead patient. He pulled a damp washrag from his pocket and wiped the blood from his hands.

"They're gone already?" Ella asked.

Arnold nodded. "They officially left four nights ago. As soon as the military arrived to block off the streets, the police left, claiming they were going to aid the military at the more 'obscure' paths around town, or to get help from the police force in Trent. The military still has tanks and guards at the barricades around town, but no form of authority is actually in Mercy. The mayor and his staff didn't even give an excuse... they just fled."

Ian scratched his neck. "How do you know all this?"

"I was an intern for one of the city council members and overheard the plans. I thought they were just preparing for if and when things got really bad, but then the next day they were gone. That was when the rest of us left at city hall created the survival squad. MISS." He snickered. "I know it sounds ridiculous, but it's all anyone has right now. With all of these infected patients running around and biting all these people, and the infection spreading like crazy, we need some type of authority."

"How do we know you two haven't been bitten?" Gabriel asked, looking them up and down. A smirk played on his lips when he examined Ella. "Should we do full-body examinations to check for bites?"

Arnold rolled his eyes. "We would be seeing something by now. They'd either be showing the flu symptoms, or they'd be screaming from the pain of being bitten. I've heard those things hurt like a motherfucker."

Gabriel _humphed_ and turned, heading for a silver car that they hadn't noticed was there at first.

Arnold turned back to Ella and Ian. "I'll explain a little more about what MISS does on the way to the high school."

"The high school?" Ella asked, confused.

He nodded. "It's where we have everyone we've found around town who hasn't either been bitten or already turned. That's what Gabe and I are doing right now - every day, we select two or three people to go around town and search for any survivors who have either holed themselves up in their houses, or are wandering around town looking for a way out. Along the way, if we run into any infected, we shoot them. Even if it doesn't do anything to decrease their population, it feels good to know we've gotten rid of at least a few."

He began walking to the car, then stopped and looked back at them. "You two are coming, right? I can't very well leave you out here."

Ian looked at Ella. "I know how gung-ho you are about finding your sister."

"Well..." Ella looked from Ian to Arnold, to Gabriel sitting in the car. Then her face brightened. "Maybe they've already found her! She might be sitting there right now, worrying about me." She turned to Arnold. "We're going."


	12. MISS II

"So were you two trying to sneak out of Mercy when we caught you?" Arnold asked from the front passenger seat.

"Actually, sneaking in," Ella told him. He looked back at her, puzzled. Sighing, she began to prattle off the story they had made up to explain Jenna. "She has mental problems, so we're worried about how she's faring out there with all of these infected... things running around," she finished.

Gabriel scoffed. "You've got a better chance of flying to Jupiter," he mumbled under his breath."

"I'm aware that there's a very small chance that she hasn't been infected," Ella snapped, her eyes blazing. "But there's still that chance, and I'm not giving up looking for her until I know what happened, whatever it may be."

"Damn," he replied, blowing a small stream of air. They all remained quiet for the rest of the ride.

When they reached the high school, Gabriel parked the car near the gymnasium, then lead them to the doors. He pulled one open, and immediately a muscular woman with pale blonde hair and piercing green eyes jumped in the doorway. A pistol was in a holster at her hip, her hand reaching for it until she saw who it was. "Jesus Christ, Gabe, you know to use the other door, not this one!"

"I figured it'd be easier," he replied, shrugging, and pushed past her so he could stroll into the gym.

"Amanda, we found two more," Arnold told the woman, gesturing to Ian and Ella.

She looked them up and down. "You're positive they haven't been bitten?" Arnold nodded. Amanda sighed. "Fine. I'll take them to the _correct_ door," she said, glaring at Gabriel's back.

"I'll be around to check on everybody later this evening," Arnold told them, smiled, then headed for another part of the building.

Amanda lead them around the edge of the gym to another set of doors, pushing them open. A small table was off to the right, and a pale young woman with long blue-black braids and honey-colored eyes sat at a chair behind it, reading a paperback novel. Beyond the table, at least fifty people were sitting in various groups and clumps around the gymnasium. Sleeping bags, water bottles, backpacks, and books were strewn about, as well.

The woman at the table glanced up at the trio who walked into the gym and stood up. "I didn't know you were on duty today," she told Amanda. "I thought Arnie and Gabe were doing the rounds."

"They were. Gabe took them to the wrong door," she said, rolling her eyes. "I swear, we should just lock it with a chain." With that, she stalked off in Gabriel's direction.

The girl turned her attention to Ian and Ella and smiled. "Sorry about her. She's a real stickler for the rules. We agreed to use this door as the main one because two of the school's security cameras face it so we can always keep an eye on who - or what - is on the other side. Those other doors are completely camera-free. I'm Stacy, by the way." She leaned down underneath the table and came back up with a stack of two sleeping bags. Standing up, she jerked her head in the direction of the Mercy citizens sitting idly on the gymnasium floor.

As Ian and Ella followed Stacy through the maze of people and sleeping bags, they heard snippets of conversation.

"It was just laying on the ground. If I wasn't wearing those combat boots the thing would've just bit right through my ankle and I'd be shambling along outside myself."

"I keep thinking about Dad's hunting rifle in the closet, and how much I wish I'd grabbed it before we left."

"I hope Stephanie Meyer doesn't turn this into some stupid novel. She'd make the zombies glow in the dark."

Stacy stopped at a small space on the gym floor without any clutter and set the two sleeping bags down. "Okay, this will be your space. I'm sorry there's so little room, but the first day that this was up we found a ton of people. The groups they bring back grow smaller and smaller by the day." She pointed to a row of cardboard boxes along the back wall. "We infiltrated the library and brought back as many of the books as we could fit in those boxes, so if you get bored and want to read you're taken care of. We also go around every morning at nine and every evening at six we go around and hand out food." She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. "Because of how many people there are, and because we don't know exactly how long we'll be stuck in here until those things are gone, we have to ration the food like crazy. We broke into the school cafeteria and kitchens so we can cook things right now, but it won't be long before we have to start doling out the Cheez-Its and Famous Amos cookies from the vending machines."

"Is there any way for us to know about what's going on out there?" Ian asked.

Stacy nodded, pointing at a flat-screen television mounted on the wall above her table at the door. The screen was dark. "We turn it on for a couple of hours before lights out at night. Gabe found that in the teacher's lounge and hooked it up here. Not many of the local channels work anymore, so when we do turn it on we almost always end up watching _Friends_ or _Seinfeld_ reruns on a cable channel. But there's a news station from a couple towns over that's still going, so we always check it to see if they give us any news updates. We also manage to get the Wifi reception for a Starbucks in Trent on the other side of the woods back there. It's weak, but it's internet."

After Stacy had gone back to her table, Ian and Ella spread out their sleeping bags and sat on top of them, ignoring the other people around them. "I didn't see Jenna or anyone who looked like her when we were going through the crowd," Ella said sadly, her chin on her knees.

Ian frowned and placed a hand on her arm. "We'll find her, I promise."

Ella covered her face with her hands and groaned softly. "But what if we don't? What if it's too late, and she's already one of them?"

Before Ian could respond, Amanda came into the gym and stood beside Stacy's table, her hands on her hips. "Okay everyone, we're turning on the television now. If you don't want to watch, stay at the back of the gym and don't get too loud so everyone else can hear it."

Ian stood up and held his hand out. "Come on, let's move so we can hear the television better. It might help keep your mind occupied." Ella sighed and grabbed his hand, standing up.

They made their way to the crowd that was assembling around the television. Only a small handful of the survivors remained by their sleeping bags, either because they were napping, reading, or talking quietly with others. A group of three teenage boys were gathered around a high-tech laptop off to the side. Everyone else was seated on the hard gymnasium floor, sitting cross-legged and staring up expectantly at the flat black screen. It reminded Ella of being in kindergarten, when the teacher would round up the class and have them sit while she read Dr. Seuss books to them.

Amanda flipped through a few stations of static and snow before finally resting on a news channel. The woman sitting behind the desk seemed chipper, something that Mercy hadn't seen in almost two weeks.

"The fire lasted for almost four hours before firefighters were able to get it under control," she said, finishing a story they hadn't heard the rest of. The woman flashed a perfectly white smile as she turned to another sheet of paper in the stack in front of her. "In other news, the quarantine in Mercy is going smoothly, says the military."

The image changed to that of a middle-aged African-American man in the military camoflauge, a microphone shoved in his face. Behind him were the barricades and the tanks that Ella and Ian had run into on their trip back from Trent. The marquee on the bottom of the screen read "JOHN EASTON." Below that, another marquee said "MILITARY SAYS MERCY IS FINE."

"The situation in Mercy is going just as we planned," John Easton said into the microphone, speaking to the reporter who was off-camera. "We currently have roughly twenty squad members inside seeking out the infected patients. As soon as we know that all the infected patients are sedated and brought to the medical facilities we have provided in the town, we will do a thorough cleansing of the town and remove the barricades within forty-eight hours of that."

"Are the infected patients that originally escaped from the hospital the only infected beings?" the reporter asked, before thrusting the microphone back to John Easton's lips.

"From what we have witnessed while being inside the town, yes. The virus has not spread to anyone else. The citizens are staying inside their homes and we are keeping them safe by remaining on the streets at all hours of the night and day. There is no need to worry."

The woman behind the desk came on screen again, smiling her fake smile once more before starting in on a story about budget cuts at a local elementary school.

The entirety of the gymnasium went silent. _They're lying_, Ella thought. _They're telling everyone outside of town that we're fine, but we're _not._ They don't want anyone to know what's going on here._

Amanda sat on the edge of Stacy's table, her arms crossed under her breasts, a sullen look on her face. She glanced out over the crowd and cleared her throat, then changed the channel to an episode of_ Two and a Half Men _before leaving out the doors. Stacy was in her seat at her table, her eyes wide. Almost everyone out in the crowd looked the same way.

"Oh my God!" Everyone around the television jumped, startled. The three teenagers sitting around their laptop were wide-eyed. One of them, a lanky Asian boy with a mop of dark brown hair, looked up at the crowd. "Someone's blogging about what's happening in Mercy."

The television crowd rushed over to look at the laptop screen. Ella and Ian were at the front, pressed up against the back of the boy who had the computer in his lap.

A Blogger website was open on the screen. The background was a soft black with light blue and silver stripes, and the profile picture showed a young boy of about thirteen or fourteen with tight blonde curls and large blue eyes flashing a bright smile as he stood on the beach in a Captain Morgan pose. The name _Quinn_ was written at the bottom of every entry.

The boy holding the laptop scrolled down until he reached the first post about the outbreak. _"I just watched the news,"_ he began, reading out loud...

_"... and they said that a bunch of people with some really strange virus broke out of the hospital last night. The police told us to report if we saw any of those people and that the virus is really contagious. Everything's shut down and we're not allowed out of the apartment. It's kinda weird. Guess I'm off to play_ Arkham Asylum_ for the next few days until things calm down. - Quinn"_

The next post was set a few days later.

_"The news this morning said that they've managed to catch almost all of the people who broke out of the hospital. Everyone's calling them just 'the infected patients,' so I guess I will, too. Anyway, they said that they've caught all but one or two of the patients and have 'exterminated those problems' (whatever that means... I'm not about to ask), which would normally be good news. Except for the fact that they've found people who aren't infected patients who were infected with the virus. Apparently the patients are spreading it around. The military is at the end of every road, and no one's allowed in or out. I feel like I'm in_ The Crazies._ - Quinn"_

A few days later:

_"The news here in Mercy was shut off today. All of the news stations, actually. The only stations we can get now are the international ones, and the only news stations we get are the ones for the county or for other towns near here. No one else is saying anything about what's going on here, or if they do they say it's just a 'quarantine' for 'military purposes,' or some crap like that._

_I caught a picture of some infected people down on the street today. The picture's kinda faraway, but that's what happens when you're trying to take a picture four stories down from you. - Quinn"_

The post was accompanied by a picture taken during the day, of a large group of roughly twenty-five dark figures on the street below shambling along, a trail of what one could only assume was blood following behind it.

"Is that the last post?" someone in the crowd asked.

The boy with the laptop shook his head. "There are two more." He began reading the next one, which was written only two days before:

_"There are more and more infected people outside. Mom and Dad are freaking out. They keep saying we don't have enough food to last through this and soon we'll have to leave the apartment and find shelter. Sally just sits there with her Barbies and plays like nothing's going on. I guess that's a good thing._

_My parents don't think I know what's going on, but I do. And maybe it seems immature or stupid to automatically jump to this, but I've seen enough movies and read enough books to know that this is a zombie apocalypse in Mercy. Or close enough. - Quinn"_

That post ended with another picture taken from the same angle as the previous one, except that the mass of infected people had grown rather large. It was nearly impossible to see the street below because of the amount of infected beings.

The final post, the most recent one, was written that morning:

_"Our power's out now. We still have internet because of our Wifi connection though. I think it has something to do with the fact that we get our Wifi from a satellite and not from a land connection that can be taken out. Something like that. I don't know how it works, all I know is that it does._

_I don't know if anyone else is still alive in Mercy. Those zombie things just keep multiplying. The landlord for this building destroyed the staircase about a week ago so everyone above the first floor is safe. The only people who lived on the first floor anyway was the landlord and his family, but I think they're bunking with the Garcias on the third floor. I went out and sat near the elevator today, just for a few minutes while Mom and Dad were distracted by Sally bumping her head on the coffee table. I could hear a bunch of moaning down in the lobby. A ton of those things are down there, but they can't figure out how to get up here now that the elevator is down and the stairs are ruined. That's a good thing._

_Dad says that we'll have to make a break for it soon. We're low on food and the neighbors are, too, so we can't ask them for help. He says we'll have to leave using the fire escape sometime in the next week or two and try and find rescue. I don't know who he expects will rescue us, but hope is the best thing for us right now. I'll let him have that... I'm not gonna be the one to tell him that there's probably no one outside of this building alive. - Quinn"_

"Can you email him or something?" Arnold said from the back of the crowd. Ella turned her head to see him, Gabriel, Amanda, and Stacy all standing behind the group, listening to the posts. They must have come in around the time that they began reading them.

"His email address is on his profile," said the boy with the laptop, nodding his head.

"Good. Email him and tell him that we've got a rescue team holed up in the town high school and that if he gives us the address of the apartment building, we'll send a team that way to rescue him, his family, and any other survivors that are still there." The boy nodded again and began typing, his fingers flying over the keys.

"Done. Now I just have to wait and see if he replies."


End file.
